= 20 RADIOLOGICAL CLEANUP OF ENEWETAK ATOLL The fauna of Enewetak may be divided. tor convenience, Into three groups according to their habitat: sea. land. or air. Certainly. the sea life js the most numerous in variety and number. In 1953. there were some 700 species of fish alone reported in the waters ofthe lagoon and surrounding ocean.!* In addition to fish, edible sea fauna includes crabs. lobsters. seg turtles, clams, and oysters. Besides domesticated dogs, mammals are limited to three species, two of rats and one house mouse. Reptiles include at least four species of geckoes, three skinks, a blind snake, and a monitor lizard introduced by the Japanese to control rats. The turtles are the green and the hawkbiil, both inhabitants of the sea. Invertebrates include snails, nocturnal crabs, centipedes, scorpions, spiders, and other insects of considerable variety including cockroaches, scale insects, termites, fruit beetles, fruit flies, ants, and others. !6 Thirty-two species of birds have been reported from Enewetak Atoll including seabirds, shorebirds, a heron, a cuckoo, and domestic fowl. Of these, nine are definitely known to breed on the islands, and six others are suspected to do so but have not been observed with nests or young birds.!7 Some of these birds serve as food sources in the form of meat or eggs. It will be recounted later in this documentary how concern over the nesting of one species of bird delayed progress in cleaning up contaminated soil. Figure |-25 illustrates the density of bird population on oneisland of the atoll. FIGURE 1-25. SEA BIRDS ON BOKEN (IRENE) ISLAND.