Rawaki Island
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Rawaki Island is one of the Phoenix Islands in the Republic of Kiribati, also known by its previous name of Phoenix Island. It is a small, uninhabited atoll, approximately 1.2 by 0.8 kilometers in size and 65 hectares in area, with a central lagoon that does not communicate with the ocean. It is located at .
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[edit] History
Rawaki was discovered on 23rd February 1824 by Capt. John Palmer from the London whaling ship Phoenix. It was once the site of an enterprise to remove guano, but was abandoned in August, 1871 (SW Boggs, Geographical Review, 1938). It was claimed for the United States under the Guano Islands Act on March 14, 1859 by C.A. Williams and Company, later the Phoenix Guano Company.[1] This claim was later relinquished in the Treaty of Tarawa. On June 29, 1889, a British protectorate was declared, and the island surveyed.[2] On March 18, 1937, it was placed under the jurisdiction of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. It later became part of Kiribati.
[edit] Fauna
Rawaki has its own species of seabird tick, Ixodes amersoni. [3]
[edit] References
- ^ Edwin H. Bryan, Jr. American Polynesia and the Hawaiian Chain. Honolulu, Hawaii: Tongg Publishing Company, 1942 page 55
- ^ Bryan, 1942
- ^ A new sea bird tick, Ixodes amersoni, from Phoenix Island PMID 5941563
- Dalton, William: The Dalton journal : two whaling voyages to the South seas, 1823 - 1829 / ed. by Niel Gunson; [Sydney] : National Library of Australia, 1990 ISBN 0-642-10505-7
[edit] External links
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