Starbuck Island
Starbuck (English Starbuck Iceland, in the past, bars Iceland, Iceland Coral Queen, Hero Iceland, Iceland Low, Starve Iceland, Iceland Volunteer called ) is an uninhabited coral island in the Pacific Ocean. The island belongs to the central Line Islands and is part of the territory of Kiribati.
Geography
Starbuck is 200 km southwest of Maldeninsel, about 740 km south-east of Jarvis Island, and about 620 km south of the equator. In the island there is a Superior Atoll, in which the lagoon is completely surrounded by coral ring and - slowly dries up - with increasing salinity. In East-West direction, the island is 8.9 km long and in north-south direction 3.5 km wide. The area of up to 5 meters high island is 16.2 km ², of which about 4 km ² on the irregularly shaped and now dry lagoon.
On Starbuck there are no natural sources of fresh water.
History
The island was in 1823 by Valentine Starbuck, the captain of the British whaling ship L' Aigle, discovered and named Volunteer Iceland. Claimed by the United States under the Guano Islands Act 1856 passed, however, the island was controlled by the United Kingdom since 1866. On Starbuck phosphate was obtained from 1870 to 1893. In the late 19th century, some ships stranded on Starbuck, as the low island is almost completely surrounded by dangerous coral reefs. At the beginning of the 20th century, therefore, a signal tower was built at the western end of the island, however, is meanwhile expired. Slammed In 1916, the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Starbuck belongs since 1979 to the island nation of Kiribati.
Animal and plant life
Starbuck was declared on 29 May 1975 by the United Nations to reserve Starbuck Iceland Wildlife Sanctuary. The island is a popular breeding ground for sea birds, so there are about 1.5 million copies one of the world's largest colonies of Sooty Tern ( Sterna fuscata or Onychoprion fuscatus ). On Starbuck also copies of the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans ) were found, which is often a sign of Polynesian visits in earlier times. Overgrown is the island mainly from Ilima - shrub ( Sida fallax ), next occurs with Bidens kiribatiensis, a kind of two teeth, which may only endemic plant species of the entire Line Islands.
The endemic Bidens kiribatiensis
One of Pohuehue (Ipomoea pes - caprae ) overgrown wall