Ducie Island

Ducie

Geography
Location	Southern Pacific Ocean
Coordinates	24°40′09″S 124°47′11″W
Archipelago	Pitcairn Islands
Administration
Pitcairn Islands, (British Overseas Territory)

Ducie Island , is a rarely visited island atoll, that has been part of the Pitcairn Islands since 1902. There are no permanent inhabitants.

The atoll is located 540 kilometres (340 mi) east of Pitcairn at 24°40′09″S 124°47′11″W and has a total area, including the lagoon, of 3.9 square kilometres (1.5 sq mi). It is 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) long, northeast to southwest, and about 1.6 km (one mile) wide.

Geography

Map of Pitcairn Islands, with inset of Ducie Island

Islets

There are four islets on the rim of the atoll:

1. Acadia Islet (the largest, along the north and east rim). Larger than the atoll's other three islets combined, it is located in the northeast of the island and resembles a long, thin sausage in shape. It is largely forested and is composed of coral rubbled ridges.
2. Pandora Islet (second largest, in the south) is composed of sand and coral rubble that borders the lagoon.
3. Edwards Islet (immediately east of Pandora Islet) The islet has the same characteristics as Pandora islet and borders also the lagoon.
4. Westward Islet (smallest, west of Pandora Islet). It appears to be sandy but is composed of coral rubble and dead shells. The islet is in the form of a horseshoe ridge, the highest point of which is about 15 feet (4-5 m) above the average water level.

The land area is 0.7 square kilometres (170 acres). The maximum elevation is 4 metres (13 feet). Seventy percent of the land is forested with Tournefortia argentea (a common tree throughout many of the Pacific Ocean islands), which grows to a height of 6 metres (20 ft). Two other plant species were reported in 1971 but were not found in 1987. The lagoon is deep and noted for its poisonous fish and dangerous sharks.

It is very nearly antipodal to Dubai, UAE.

Wild Life

Botany

The Phanerogams that can be found on Ducie are:

• Heliotropium foertherianum.
• In expeditions to the island there were reports of Lepturus grass, and Tournefortia in Acadia Islet.
• Two species of Coralline algae, Foslie and Porolithon Onkoes.

Zoology

The atoll is populated by several species of Birds and fishes as reptiles and mammals.

Mammals	Birds	Reptiles	Fishes
The only mammal known to inhabitate the island is the Polynesian Rat.	Sooty Terns Fairy Tern Boobies Petrels Christmas Shearwaters Red-tailed Tropicbirds Sulidaes Frigatebirds Gulls Scolopacidaes.	Skinks Geckos	There can be about 138 registered species in the lagoon, most of them are from southeastern Oceania, Western Pacific, Indian Ocean as some in Easter Island Requiem sharks Moray eels Ophichthidaes Moringuidaes Synodontidaes Cornetfishs Ophidiidaes Holocentridaes Scorpaenidaes Apogonidaes Serranidaes Hawkfishes Flagtails Sea chubs Priacanthidaes Carangidaes Goatfishes Butterflyfishes Marine angelfishes Wrasses Threefin blennys Acanthuridaes Scombridaes Bothidaes Triggerfishes Filefish Tetraodontidaes Porcupinefishes Lutjanidaes Combtooth blennys Needlefishes Aulostomidaes Serranidaes Lethrinidaes Sweepers Acanthuridaes

Nearly 90% of Murphy's Petrels populations are in Ducie, along with Herald and Kermadec petrels. Phoenix Petrels, apparently disappeared from Ducie at some point between Whitney expediton in 1922 and the 1991-92 expedition. There is also a big population of Christmas Shearwaters theres an stimate of three thousand pairs, about 5% of the world's total population. About five thousand pairs of Fairy Tern and between a hundred and a thousnd Red-tailed Tropicbirds. Ducie isn't populated by any kind of landbird species.

History

The island was discovered by Portuguese sailor Pedro Fernandes de Queirós on January 26, 1606, during an expedition led by Queirós that began in Callao, Peru. The objective of the expedition was to take Christian missionaries to the previously discovered Espiritu Santo, on the New Hebrides archipelago. The island was the first discovery of the trip, followed by another 17. Queirós first named the island as Luna-Puesta (Setting Moon) but later renamed it to La Encarnación (Encarnation).

The Island was claimed in 1821 to be the place were the survivors of the wreck of the whaleship Essex, attacked by a whale in November 1820, had reached after a month at sea in two whaleboats, but the real place the survivors reached was Henderson Island. Despite this skeletons found in Ducie are probably the remains of the third boat's sailors.

The island was claimed in 1867 for the United States under the Guano Islands Act and the UK annexed the island on December 19, 1902.

In 1969 the atoll was proposed as "Island for Science" and was recommended as a Ramsar Site

Expeditions

• Whitney South Sea Expedition, 1922
• National Geographic Society-Oceanic Institute Expedition to Southeast Oceania, 1970-71
• Operation Raleigh, 1987

For the purposes of amateur radio, Ducie became a DXCC country on November 16, 2001 and the first expedition was led by Kan Mizoguchi, JA1BK, in March 2002 using the VP6DI callsign.

In 2003, Canadian amateur radio operators launched a DXpedition on Ducie Island using the callsign VP6DIA.

In February 2008, an international group of amateur radio operators visited Ducie for a DXpedition using the callsign VP6DX. They made 183,686 contacts, setting a new record for DXpeditions.

See also

• List of Guano Island claims

References

• "Ducie Atoll: Its Story, Phisiography and Biota" (PDF). 1975-01-15. - The Smithsonian Institution

External links

• A visit to Ducie Island (April 1998) with some photos
• Map of Ducie Island
• VP6DXpedition 2008