Exciting news for you eco-tourists: you may be just a few months away from spending a dream vacation on a remote Pacific island among millions of seabirds, historic World War II artifacts, and a crystal-clear lagoon stocked with a variety of sea creatures.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has just announced that it is preparing to reopen limited ecotourism at its Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, which sits roughly 1,250 miles northwest of Honolulu. The announcement follows last month’s proclamation made by President Bush designating the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as a marine national monument. Bush called for “conservation and scientific research as primary uses of the area and for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to jointly manage the area, in cooperation with the state of Hawaii.”
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Midway Atoll, the property was a former Navy outpost that became a National Wildlife Refuge in 1996. Four years later it was also named the Battle of Midway National Memorial. Currently, about 50 employees of Alaska-based Chugach Industries Inc. provide the basic infrastructure services for the island, including maintenance of the runway and airport, which is used as an emergency mid-Pacific landing spot. You can fly in, but once you are on the island, transportation is limited to bicycles, gold carts, and your two feet.
If you are looking to visit the island be prepared to share space with massive amounts of black-and-white Laysan albatrosses, which call Midway home. Local biologists say that this year’s count of albatross was a record 511,000 pairs. Other residents of the Atoll include the threatened green sea turtles and endangered Hawaiian monk seals. In addition, about 250 spinner dolphins call the 5-mile-diameter lagoon home.
Midway is also known as a bird-lover’s paradise. On any given day visitors can catch a glimpse of the great frigate bird, red-footed boobies, brown and black noddies, sooty terns, shearwaters and red-tailed tropic birds. There is also a small population of endangered Laysan ducks that have been relocated to Midway Atoll and are thriving in freshwater wetlands that are planted with native grasses by Fish & Wildlife Service volunteers.
Specific prices and dates for the first tour of the island have yet to be announced. But insiders estimate that the cost will likely rival that of a luxury cruise because of how expensive it will be to transport people and supplies to such a remote location.