Starbuck Island

Starbuck Island, also known as Volunteer Island, sits in the central Pacific as part of Kiribati’s Central Line Islands. It has no permanent human population. Over time, it has been called Barren Island, Coral Queen Island, Hero Island, Low Island, and Starve Island.

The island lies just east of the Pacific Ocean’s geographic center, at 4°58′S 158°45′W. It stretches 8.9 kilometers east to west and 3.5 kilometers north to south, covering 1,620 hectares. Its terrain is low and dry, made of coral limestone, with a steep beach that gives way to a 6-to-8-meter-high bank of large coral fragments. On the eastern side, several hypersaline lagoons form; they sometimes dry out and are considered hazardous—one guano miner once sank to his neck in salty mud before being pulled out. No freshwater exists here, making it one of the driest atolls in the Line Islands. Average yearly rainfall is about 800 millimeters.

Vegetation is sparse: stunted Sida fallax scrub, low herbs and grasses, a few Cordia subcordata bushes, and bunch grass. A handful of palm trees have been spotted near the island’s center. Starbuck hosts a massive colony of sooty terns—estimated at 1.5 million pairs, though other counts put the total between three and six million birds. Polynesian rats, feral cats, green turtles, and roughly fifteen other seabird species also live here.

The first recorded sighting came in 1819 from James Henderson, a merchant captain on the East India Company ship *Hercules*, sailing from South America to Calcutta. His report of three islands appeared in *The Calcutta Journal*, though the exact date for Starbuck was not given; historian Henry Evans Maude suggested early February 1819. Captain Obed Starbuck, on the Nantucket whaler *Hero*, saw it on September 5, 1823. Later that year, on December 12, Obed’s first cousin Valentine Starbuck—an American commanding the British whaler *L’Aigle*—also sighted it. Valentine Starbuck is the first non-Pacific Islander known to have set foot on the island. *L’Aigle* was carrying King Kamehameha II of Hawaii and Queen Kamāmalu to England.

The island was charted in 1825 by Captain the 7th Lord Byron (a cousin of the poet), commanding the British warship HMS *Blonde*. He was returning to London after repatriating the remains of the Hawaiian royal couple, who had died of measles while trying to visit King George IV. Byron also charted Mauke and Malden Island, the latter named after his surveying officer.

The United States claimed Starbuck under the 1856 Guano Islands Act, but Britain took control in 1866 when Commodore Swinburn of HMS *Mutine* claimed possession. Phosphate was mined here from 1870 to 1893. The island later became part of the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony until Kiribati gained independence in 1979. American claims were formally dropped in the Treaty of Tarawa that same year.

The island’s highest point is only about 5 meters. Its low profile and dangerous reefs caused several shipwrecks in the late 1800s. The French transport *Euryale* wrecked in March 1870, stranding the crew for 35 days. The captain, future contre-admiral Albert des Portes, used the experience to correctly chart the island’s location. All crew members were eventually rescued. On August 7, 1896, the Norwegian ship *Seladon* hit the barrier reef. The crew took to lifeboats, drifting for 30 days until landing on Niulakita, Tuvalu. They lived with a few locals for 10 months before a passing ship rescued them.

Today, Starbuck Island is designated as the Starbuck Island Wildlife Sanctuary. In 2014, the Kiribati government established a 12-nautical-mile fishing exclusion zone around the southern Line Islands, including Starbuck, Caroline (Millennium), Flint, Vostok, and Malden.