main street and replied that since the
Trust Territory -already condoned
‘saa drinking and betel-nut chew-
ring, perhaps it could most dramatically
appeal to tourists if the Coneress
of Micronesia passed ; t law legalizing
maryuana, The Cong
s has not even
=
°
considered that sowsibiliee, but Tourists
have been drifting in, drawn by war-
Banat Cle. Veterans of the Twen-
tieth Air Fores, which dropped the
atomic bombs, have alsa been coming
back far nostaleie reunions,
AN ANY tourists are attracted ta
i
Micronesia by its coral reefs,
which are of unexcelled variety and
beauty. Recently, theugh, these have
time memories or hy a belief, now with-
Come
ence of so
enemv—A canthaster blancs, the ¢TYOUNW T=
of-tharns scarlish, T his predatay31S EVI,
f,
aut foundation, that, despite the presmany
Americans
for
sa
many years, parts of Micronesia ree
main strikingly beautiful and compara-
unspoiled.
tively
Ta
1968,
thirteen
thousand tourists vistted the Trust Perritory, and in 1969 twenty thousand.
Currently, they are coming ar the rate
of three thousand a month. Many of
them are Japanese, and mast of these
go to Saipan after taking advantage of
bargain air fares beaween Vokvo and
Guam. (The nature of the recent
transformation of Guam, once a claistered enclave of the United States
Navy, may be adduced from the names
of two recently built hotels: the Fujita
and the “Pokvu. The career of a nisci
American living on Guam , whoa deec-
ade ago served as interpreter far ovo
Japanese soldier stragelers captured
the jungle, has now came full errele:
on pehoalF af rhe Guem Teartst Comiissis, he mans an airport mnfermiation
counter ostabtished
as a comven-
tence for Fapanese visitors. y One af
Sauipaiv’s fancier hotels, the Hfiv-fourroom Royal Taga, which boasts aire
conditioning and
suroininis pool,
booked months in advance by fapanese
businessmen
anal
Japanese
honevmoecners, (Phere are new four hundre and
hotel rooms im all of
the “Prust Der ritory with sul more
under canscruction. } On Saipan, there
thirty
feature
He unul October, bogsesiaentvefour
yenrs after the Inst of thousands of
Japanese soldiers and civilians, in deancover the
Stares conquest
¢
tnt
spanaver
the United
Goauiec® States
of
fair ishuadl doaped co dean Front U6
'
*
"
PLOLOL TONITE,
1
whieh
.
thee
.
[t
ett
UPON It, and lec its own malign white
stomach suck out the poison. With this
stemmich the suurfsh also cngarges the.
living polyps that give coral its bright
colors; where a herd of acanthiasters
has graved, the devastated coral left
behind as dead swehite, “Vhese starfish
travel aloug the floar of the ocean, and
they move almost three-quarters of
mile a month, They can stay alive for
six months without eating, bur when
they eae they ent hearulys a bir acanthaster can kill Afi years of ceral
rowel ty a aielie. A female ¢can dav
rventv-four milbon eggs ata clip. Tn
normal
emies, most of these ceees are
gobbled up as larvae by the very coral
polyps thee would consume tf thes
hived
or thes are kept
to became adults,
in bounds bv severnl species at
shell-
fsh—prineipally the triton. But samething tins happened, AH oche was froin
Australia to Plus ad, to upset the eco-
lowdeal Galanee —-perhaps the blasting: of
coral fa
dred#ime operations, crating
| witches
of
dead
coral )
where
Iarvae can safely settle; perhaps
toa much tritan-lniting; perbesos the pollution by man of atoll
lazoons, which has ctintiactted
natural predators, In anv event,
photo-
Hive aminunition orl eres alte thre pub
scaborne
ture on its back, place the affected part
graphs not of beaches or palny
trees or sunsets but of a ruined
Japanese hospital, a rusty tank, and
the Japanese jail where Amelia Bar
hare was said co have been held cnpuve before she disappeared. Within the
past couple OL years, Japanese delegaHens to Saipan hase unveiled two
memorids ta the war dead) one ot
them In a meuntatneus area called
) Marpi, which wasn't declired clear of
aio
develop as many as twenty-one arms.
Tes back is coated with sharp, poisonous
spines a couple of inghes Jong, and
step on itis to risk infection and fever.
The best first atd is to curn the crea-
of the war. Phe souvenir pust-
sale
from
grow to uwo feet in diameter and can
ether than crumbhas remnants
on
attack
Wyo in both looks and behavier.
are few stehts for touriscs ta see
cards
under
the
proviferation
of
acanchasters
lies
caused cong caring blolo@ise sehr bets
studied the animal in Afteronesia to Say
thac
it
IS
os
potomuedly
disastrous
for
tae corel island as canunuous forest fires
are toa, watershed,” adding, “And the
carals yorobably will require a doneer
tine ten recovery than docs a) foresc.”
| Thevee creatures canna be chapped
to
dendh:
if
Veep
cert
eke
ante
Perr
plecesy veouend: uoowidh four sturtich,
Shart oad oasssaline cthenr seach nardes
of shirtinyp or tritons—which mice
Lie ec ves met ooutoof hed aad cause
perder coo loica ni shite f-=tie best
mgttod) devised sOonat ter cep swath
them 3s to have underwater divers inject them, one by one, with formalin.
Tn the Jast couple of years, this labori-
ous hypodermic war has been waged
throughout Micronesia, “People scoft at
our worries about the acanthaster, but
who has ever seen a phenomenon of this
sort beforef?? Peter Walsen, the Trust
Territory’s chief fisheries man, sant to
me. “We may be witnessing a unique
hielogical catastrophe, [ don’t think the
reefs will collapse—which, of course,
would mean the end of the atells——bur
as long as the starfish multiply so fantastically we've got to try to stop them,
if you assume adiving Tee to be pref-
erable to a dead one.” The island of
Timian has offered a ten-cent bounty per
starfish, and the United States Congress has appropriated four and
half
million dollars ta fight the battle.
Many Miicronesians, disagreeable as
they conskler the crown-of-thorns starfish te be, have been taking dus new
tribulation philosoplically. They have
survived frightful typhoons and (ightening pestilences and occupation by four
foreign nations; they suspect thac they
can also survive whatever thy acan1
thaster may be up to at the MONICHL ¢
‘They point our that the creature itself
isn’t news it was known to be in existe
ence before the United States was,
(Linnaeus deseribed it in 1758.) Th-
deed, some Aficronesians even profess
to Know how the puzzling acaatinester
first came to their area, Onee upon a
ume, it seems, in whit are now the
Marshall Islands, an frog of Arno
agreed to swap some of his fishing se-
crets for some of the navigational
crets of an roy of Wotte. The Wore
man owas deceitful and heerally AVY
bum steer; he passed
the Arno mania
along same false navigational lore,
Whereopon the cnraged) Arne ready,
pretending to teach his) fellow-clief
how ta cateh edible fish by calling them
Into dus nets, taught him stead haw
to sumunen the crown-af-thorns. “Phas
the Weotye reef went dead, Vhere are:
some older Micronesians today wha be- 1
Neve that of discussions between they
United States voverament and the Bae
ture Political Status Commission reWEA Al aM MApasse, the trad ities
chiefs can get together and, provided |
they forswear such duplicity, use ticir
Hidde powers ta werk out oa suitible
.
.
and sensible destuiy for then people.
-—-I0. J. Rate, [r.
1