McKean Island
McKean Island is a small, uninhabited island in the Phoenix Islands, Republic of Kiribati. It is located at 3°36′S 174°07′W / 3.600°S 174.117°W. Its area is 57 hectares (140.85 acres).
Kiribati declared the Phoenix Islands Protected Area in 2006, with the park being expanded in 2008. The 164,200-square-mile (425,300-square-kilometer) marine reserve contains eight coral atolls including McKean Island.
McKean is roughly oval in shape, and less than one kilometre in diameter. It is ringed by a reef flat, with a beach ridge of coral rock and rubble surrounding the rim, rising to five metres above sea level. The centre of the island is depressed, with a shallow, hypersaline, guano-laced lagoon. Treeless, McKean harbours seven herbaceous species of plants, and the world's largest nesting population of lesser frigatebird (Fregata ariel) with up to 85,000 birds. 29 other species of birds have been described as visiting the island. Historically, the only mammal is the Polynesian rat, now exterminated, which suggests pre-historic discovery by Polynesians. There is also a species of gecko that inhabits the island.
McKean has no sources of fresh water, and no freshwater lens.
McKean Island was the first of the Phoenix group to be reported and named. It was discovered May 28, 1794 by the British Capt. Henry Barber, of the ship Arthur, while en route from Botany Bay, New South Wales to the northwest coast of America. Sighting the uninhabited island on 28 May, Captain Barber named it "Drummond's Island", plotting it at 3°40'S, 176°51'W. The Albany Sentinel reported that the "small sandy island...is very low and cannot be seen from the deck of a vessel more than five or six miles". It was later renamed 'Arthur Island' and appeared as such in charts of that time. Its coordinates were given as 3°30'S, 176°0'W.
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