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

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