Birnie Island

Birnie Island is low and dry, with a small, shallow lagoon in its southeast sector which is all but dried up. It is treeless, covered mostly with low shrubs and grasses, and was once home to a colony of rabbits, which have since been eradicated. Because of the undisturbed nature of the island, its vegetation, and the large colonies of seabirds which roost there, Birnie Island was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1975. It now forms () part of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, one of the world's largest marine protected area. An expedition to carry out eradication of the population of Polynesian rat on Birnie Island was carried out in 2011. ==History==

Birnie Island was discovered in 1823 by the London whaling ship Sydney, commanded by a Captain Emmett, and named after James Birnie, brother of London merchant Alexander Birnie. It was surveyed by the United States Exploring Expedition in January 1841. In the 1860s, the island was claimed under the Guano Islands Act for the United States, though there is no evidence of guano ever being mined there. The United States gave up its claim in favor of Kiribati in the 1979 Treaty of Tarawa. Birnie is rarely visited today, though a New Zealand-funded scientific expedition to rid the island of rats and other invasive animal species was carried out in 2008. File:Birnie Island Beach.jpg|Birnie Island. Day beacon in background File:Birnie Island Day Beacon.jpg|Birnie Island day beacon with lagoon in background File:Birnie Island US Survey Mark.jpg|United States Army Corps of Engineers survey marker on Birnie Island ==See also==