Nihoa

Nihoa
For the genus of spiders of the same name, see Nihoa (genus).
Not to be confused with Nihao.

Nihoa

Nihoa (Pacific Ocean)

Geography
Location

Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument

Coordinates 230338N 1615519W [1]

Archipelago Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
Area

0.69km2 (0.27sqmi)
Country
United States of America
Demographics

Demonym

Nihoan

Population

Nihoa (/niho./; Hawaiian: [nihow]), also known as Bird Island or Moku Manu, is the tallest of ten islands
and atolls in the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). The island is located at the southern end of the
NWHI chain, 296km (160nmi) southeast of Necker Island. Nihoa is the closest NWHI in proximity to the eight
main windward Hawaiian Islands at approximately 240km (130nmi) northwest of the island of Kauai. The island
has two peaks, 272m (892ft) Miller's Peak in the west, and 259m (850ft) Tanager Peak in the east. Nihoa's area is
about 171 acres (0.69km2) and is surrounded by a 142,000-acre (57,000ha) coral reef. Its jagged outline gives the
island its name, Nihoa, which means "tooth" in the Hawaiian language.[2]
The island is home to 25 species of plants and several animals, making it the most diverse island in the entire NWHI.
Endemic birds like the Nihoa Finch and Nihoa Millerbird, and endemic plants like the Nihoa Fan Palm, the Nihoa

Nihoa
Carnation, and Amaranthus brownii are found only on Nihoa. The plant communities and rocky outcrops provide
nesting and perching areas for 18 species of seabirds, such as Red-footed Boobies and Brown Noddies, terns,
shearwaters, and petrels. Prehistoric evidence indicates Native Hawaiians lived on or visited the island around AD
1000, but over time the location of Nihoa was mostly forgotten, with only an oral legend preserving its name.
Captain James Colnett rediscovered the island in 1788, and Queen Kaahumanu visited it in 1822. It was made part
of the Kingdom of Hawaii by King Kamehameha IV.
In 1909, Nihoa became part of the Hawaiian Islands Reservation, a federal wildlife refuge established by U.S
president Theodore Roosevelt. The Tanager Expedition surveyed the island in 1923, taking a comprehensive
biological inventory of its many species. In 1940, it became part of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Wildlife
Refuge and in 1988, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to its culturally significant
archaeological sites. In 2006, it became part of the Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument. Efforts are
underway to ensure that endangered plant species are propagated beyond their limited range and represented in ex
situ collections. Persons intending to visit Nihoa for cultural and scientific research purposes require a
USFWS-issued special-use permit to land on the island so as to reduce the risk of introducing alien species to
Nihoa's already fragile ecosystem.

Geology
Nihoa is part of the Hawaiian Emperor seamount chain of volcanic islands,
atolls, and seamounts starting from the island of Hawaii in the southeast to the
Aleutian Islands in the northwest. It is the youngest of ten islands in the
uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), having formed 7.2 million
years ago; the oldest, Kure Atoll, formed 30 million years ago. Over the
millennia, Nihoa has experienced significant erosion; along with Necker, French
Frigate Shoals, and Gardner Pinnacles, Nihoa is one of only four islands in the
NWHI that still has an exposed basalt rock substrate. Six valleys slant down from
north to south, meeting at the south side of the island: West Valley, West Palm
Valley, Miller Valley, Middle Valley, East Palm Valley, and East Valley.
Among features on Nihoa are Dog's Head Peak (358ft or 109m), named for its
likeness, and Pinnacle Peak (626ft or 191m), a volcanic dike created when less
resilient rock was eroded away and harder rock was open to the elements. The
Tanager Peak, looking east from
only flat area on the island is Albatross Plateau, just below Miller's Peak. The
Miller Peak
Devil's Slide is a narrow cleft descending 700 feet (210m) irrespective of the
surrounding elevation. Extending northward from Albatross Plateau, it ends at the vertical cliffs with a 190-foot
(60m) drop straight down to the ocean below. In this chasm, rare ferns grow, along with several endemic species,
including a giant cricket.

Ecology
See also: Flora of Nihoa
Nihoa's inaccessibility and lack of major guano deposits made the island unattractive to humans, helping to preserve
its endemic species from extinction. Because of Nihoa's small size, most of its endemic organisms are endangered, as
one single disaster such as an island-wide fire or an introduction of invasive species could wipe out the whole
population. One such invasive species is the Gray Bird Grasshopper, Schistocerca nitens; from the period between
1999 and 2003, grasshoppers devastated much of the vegetation on the island and posed a real threat to the continued
health of plants on Nihoa. The following year, the numbers decreased and the vegetation became lush again. The
grasshoppers probably came to Nihoa by way of wind from Kauai.

Nihoa

Unique species include:

Pritchardia remota fan palm, the only tree on the island

Nihoa Millerbird
Nihoa Finch
Nihoa Conehead Katydid
Nihoa Carnation
Sesbania tomentosa
the amaranth Amaranthus brownii
the trapdoor spider Nihoa mahina
Thaumatogryllus conanti, a giant cricket found in the Devil's Slide area
Plagithmysus nihoae, a longhorned beetle
Eupelmus nihoaensis, a wasp
Hylaeus perkinsiana, Perkin's Yellow-faced Bee

Prehistoric human habitation

Nihoa Island Archeological District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district

View of Nihoa Island

Nearest city

Kauai, Hawaii

Governing body

United States Fish and Wildlife Service

NRHPReference# 88000640
Added to NRHP

June 13, 1988

Nihoa was well known to the early Hawaiians. Archaeological expeditions found extensive prehistoric agricultural
terraces and house sites. At least one site has been dated to around the 1st millennium AD, sometime between
867-1037. There is some doubt as to the number of people that lived on Nihoa, because while the large terraces
suggest a considerable number, there is scant freshwater to be found. Archaeologists Kenneth Emory and Paul
Cleghorn estimate that water could support as many as 100 people, although if the island were previously forested,
this would have increased fresh water supplies relative to its current state. It is also thought that Nihoa may have
been used only for religious purposes, which would have meant that Ancient Hawaiians only visited here
occasionally and did not stay for long. Because of the island's importance, the island was added to the National
Register of Historic Places in 1988, and subsequently became part of Papahnaumokukea Marine National
Monument in June 2006.
Nihoa, along with Necker Island to the northwest, is among the most northern, isolated, smallest and driest of the
Hawaiian islands, and receives the lowest dust and tephra input. All of these features were found to strongly predict
deforestation among the Pacific Islands. The collapse of the Nihoa population may stem from this, similar to how

Nihoa
Easter Island became inclement to its human civilization following deforestation and depletion of seabirds and other
natural resources.

Early exploration
The first Westerner to discover Nihoa was Captain James Colnett of the Prince of Wales, on March 21, 1788. Due to
Colnett's lengthy absence from England, including his imprisonment by the Spanish for his part in the Nootka Sound
Incident, the discovery was once widely accredited to Captain William Douglas of the Iphigenia, who sighted Nihoa
almost a year later.
By the end of the 18th century, Nihoa had been forgotten by most Hawaiians. In 1822, Queen Kaahumanu and her
husband King Kaumualii traveled with Captain William Sumner to find Nihoa, as her generation had only known
the island through songs and myths. Later, King Kamehameha IV sailed there to officially annex the island as part of
the Kingdom of Hawaii. Finally, in 1885, Princess Liliuokalani made a pilgrimage to Nihoa with her escorts, but
their luncheon was cut short when one of the party ignited a wildfire by accident. The group tried to flee the island,
but the rising tides made it difficult and several boats were flooded, destroying some of the photographs taken.

Notes
[1] http:/ / tools. wmflabs. org/ geohack/ geohack. php?pagename=Nihoa& params=23_03_38_N_161_55_19_W_region:ID_type:isle
[2] . Captain William Douglas, the second Western explorer to find Nihoa, describes the island as "[bearing] the form of a saddle, high at each
end, and low in the middle. To the south, it is covered with verdure; but on the north, west, and east sides it is a barren rock, perpendicularly
steep..."

References
Conant, Sheila (1985). "Recent Observations on the Plants of Nihoa Island, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands".
Pacific Science (University of Hawaii Press) 39 (2): 135149. hdl: 10125/921 (http://hdl.handle.net/10125/
921).
Evenhuis, Neal L. (ed.); Eldredge, Lucius G. (ed.) (2004). Natural History of Nihoa and Necker Islands. Bishop
Museum Bulletin in Cultural and Environmental Studies; No. 1. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bishop Museum Press.
ISBN1-58178-029-X.
Liittschwager, David; Middleton, Susan (2005). Archipelago: Portraits of Life in the World's Most Remote
Sanctuary. National Geographic. ISBN0-7922-4188-6.
MacDonald, Gordon A.; Peterson, Frank L.; Abbott, Agatin T. (1983). Volcanoes in the Sea: Geology of Hawaii
(2nd edition). University of Hawaii Press. ISBN0-8248-0832-0.
Tava, Rerioterai; Keale, Moses K. (1998). Niihau, the traditions of a Hawaiian island (http://www.
mutualpublishing.com/bookinfo.aspx?bookID=242). Mutual Publishing. ISBN0-935180-80-X.
Rauzon, Mark J. (2001). Isles of Refuge: Wildlife and History of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. University
of Hawaii Press. p.12. ISBN0-8248-2330-3.
United States Census Bureau. Nihoa Island: Block 1000, Census Tract 114.98, Honolulu County, Hawaii (http://
factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&-context=dt&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&
-CHECK_SEARCH_RESULTS=N&-CONTEXT=dt&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_P001&-tree_id=4001&
-transpose=N&-redoLog=false&-all_geo_types=N&-geo_id=100$10000US150030114981000&
-_showChild=Y&-format=&-_lang=en&-show_geoid=Y)

Nihoa

Further reading
Beardsley, John W. (1966). "Insects and other terrestrial arthopods from the leeward Hawaiian Islands". Proc
Hawaiian Entomol Soc 19: 157185. ISSN 0073-134X (http://www.worldcat.org/issn/0073-134X). hdl:
10125/10915 (http://hdl.handle.net/10125/10915).
Clapp, Roger B.; Eugene Krindler, Robert R. Fleet (May 1977). "The Natural History of Nihoa Island,
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands" (http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/duffy/arb/206-207/207.pdf)
(PDF). In F. R. Fosberg, M. -H. Sachet and D. R. Stoddart. Atoll Research Bulletin (Washington, D. C.:
Smithsonian Institution) (207). Retrieved 2008-12-07.
Cleghorn, Paul L. (1987). Prehistoric Cultural Resources and Management Plan for Nihoa and Necker Islands,
Hawaii. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press.
Gagn, Wayne C.; Sheila Conant (1983). "Nihoa: Biological Gem of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands". Ka Elele.
Newsletter of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum Association (Bernice P. Bishop Museum) (7): 35.
Hawai'i Department of Land and Natural Resources (2008). "Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument
Management Plan: Appendix A - Cultural Impact Assessment" (http://www.fws.gov/midway/volume ii
appendix a.pdf). Volume II: Final Environmental Assessment. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Retrieved
2009-09-30.
Juvik, Sonia P.; James O. Juvik, Thomas R. Paradise (1998). Atlas of Hawaii. University of Hawaii Press.
ISBN978-0-8248-2125-8.
Kirch, Patrick Vinton (1985). Feathered Gods and Fishhooks: An Introduction to Hawaiian Archaeology and
Prehistory. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN0-8248-1739-9 Check |isbn= value (help).
Lebo, Susan A.; Kevin T.M. Johnson (2007). "Geochemical sourcing of rock specimens and stone artifacts from
Nihoa and Necker Islands, Hawii". Journal of Archaeological Science (Elsevier) 34 (6): 858871. doi:
10.1016/j.jas.2006.08.009 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2006.08.009).
Olson, Storrs L. (1996). "History and ornithological journals of the Tanager Expedition of 1923 to the
northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Johnston and Wake islands" (http://si-pddr.si.edu/jspui/handle/10088/5880).
Atoll Research Bulletin (National Museum of Natural History) (433).
Palmer, H. S. (1927). "Geology of Kaula, Nihoa, Necker and Gardner Islands, and French Frigate Shoals".
Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin. Tanager Expedition Publication Number 4 35.
Wong, Sterling (2008). "Nihoa" (http://www.oha.org/kwo/2008/11/story13.php). Ka Wai Ola (Office of
Hawaiian Affairs) 25 (11): 12.

External links
Pacific Islands Benthic Habitat Mapping Center (http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/pibhmc/pibhmc_nwhi_nih.
htm)
NWHI Multi-Agency Education Project (http://www.hawaiianatolls.org/about/nihoa.php)
Peter T. Oboyski (http://nature.berkeley.edu/~poboyski/hawaii/nihoa.htm)
Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument Information Management System (http://www.pmnmims.
org/)
Coordinates: 230338N 1615519W (http:/ / tools. wmflabs. org/ geohack/ geohack. php?pagename=Nihoa&
params=23_03_38_N_161_55_19_W_type:isle_region:US-HI)

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors

Nihoa Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=604311602 Contributors: A2Kafir, Amdurbin, Aoi, AstroHurricane001, BW, Backspace, Bletch, Bobblewik, Cm205, Cnilep, D6,
Deflective, Duk, Dysmorodrepanis, Ebyabe, Edibobb, Elcarmean, Emerson7, Eoghanacht, Folks at 137, Gaius Cornelius, Gene Nygaard, Gilgamesh, Gittinsj, Hmains, Hu12, Hubertfarnsworth,
IceCreamAntisocial, Jakerk1, Japanese Searobin, Jimp, Jllm06, Joseph Solis in Australia, Kailasa108, KeithH, Kwamikagami, Lightmouse, Lmbstl, LurkingInChicago, MJCdetroit, Mammalia,
Mandarax, Marshman, Materialscientist, Mgiganteus1, Mhockey, Midnight bird, Mike18xx, Mild Bill Hiccup, Mountolive, Myasuda, New World Man, Nyttend, Pbrower2a, Pfly, Resident Mario,
Rich Farmbrough, Rjwilmsi, Sardanaphalus, Sarefo, SeanMD80, Snowmanradio, Surfinokie, TDogg310, Tabletop, Verrai, Viking880, Viriditas, West.andrew.g, Xufanc, 34 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

File:Nihoa aerial.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Nihoa_aerial.jpg License: unknown Contributors: George H. Balazs, NOAA
File:Pacific Ocean laea location map.svg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Pacific_Ocean_laea_location_map.svg License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0
Contributors: User:Tentotwo
Image:Nihoa cliff.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Nihoa_cliff.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Dr. James P. McVey, NOAA Sea Grant Program
File:Nihoa, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, USA-2012.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Nihoa,_Northwestern_Hawaiian_Islands,_USA-2012.jpg License: Creative
Commons Attribution 2.0 Contributors: G. Wallace of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service - Pacific Region's

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