Rose Atoll is recovering...and listening...

[MoonlightSailor]

As a sailing resident of Hawaii, when a story makes local news about another island or atoll in the Pacific, it catches my attention.

Recently, I saw a story about Rose atoll in the South Pacific. Rose Atoll is under the care of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Just like Palmyra Atoll, Rose Atoll has been eradicated of all rats. Next, they plan to eradicate the invasive species of ants that still continue to kill young birds.

As a sailor and explorer of such remote & pristine islands, I’ve been tempted to visit these kind of places unannounced. I’m probably not the only one.

While watching the special on Rose AtolI, I learned that part of their study is to determine the amount of boat traffic that passes through the area. The wildlife agency is using underwater sound detection devices to relay occurrences of boats in the immediate region. These devices do not identify what or who’s boat it is.

There are many islands in the Pacific Ocean that are off limits to cruisers.

Just know that they may be listening and you may not even know it.

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Rose_Atoll/

Respect the islands!

[JPA Cate]

MoonlightSailor,

For a while, some branch of the Australian government was recording all engine activity coming into and out of Pittwater (north of Sydney). At that time, it was said that all of our engines have a sound signature that can be identified. I'm sure the American gov't has access to the technology, and if Fish and Wildlife are in charge, maybe the don't have the $$ for it, but otherwise, I would assume that they could tell which boat it was, if it were in a shared data base. Think about Operation Cook, for instance. We must assume that all friendly nations share information, and that others may try to hack it. It is just life today. .....And now back to the regular programming.

The isolated atolls are really sort of magic, special environments. Some of them have extremely clear water, and the outer reefs are inspiring.

Ann

[RaymondR]

Spectrum analysis stuff is fairly cheap these days and the software sometimes comes with AD converters used with computers. Underwater microphones are also available off the shelf and once one had a library of boat noise spectrums it would not be too difficult to compare them.

About two decades ago I was responsible for moving a lot of equipment onto an island off the Western Australian coast. The environmental conditions were fierce. All the equipment had to be water blasted to unsure we did not transfer any soil. All buildings had to be covered with tarps and fumigated overnight with lithium bromide, and bait trays were placed into them to detect and poison any rodents. Since many of the islands had previously had military bases on them and some used for A bomb tests it appeared a little extreme.

It's logical that if the authorities are spending time and money to remove the alien predators they would be fairly anxious to prevent them being reintroduced.