Oe
in the vicinity of Nam (Charlie) Islet.
The larger species
were found near Bikini Island.
In response to a special request to check the levels of
radioactivity at Aerokoj Islet, received during the survey, the
land hermit crab, a known concentrator of 90Sr, was collected.
Since coconut crabs are both an indicator organism and a food
item, they would have been sampled instead of hermit crabs, but
coconut crabs were not found on Aerokoj.
Thousands of terns nest at Bikini Atoll, mostly on the
western islets.
‘food.
Both the birds and their eggs will be used as
The terns almost always feed at sea, outside the lagoon
or reefs.
On the other hand,
the curlews and turnstones feed
along the shores and on the reef,
and the curlew also eats the
seeds of an endemic shrub, Scaevola serica, or the beach magnolia.
Although the curlews and turnstones are transients and are
present in small numbers, at most a few hundred, they contain
the highest levels of radionuclides among the birds.
turnstones,
noddy terns,
Curlews,
and fairy terns were sampled.
8LE1O0S
Rats are not used as food but they are the only mammal
living on the atoll,
and a few were taken to determine their
radionuclide content.
of Energy
Department
fice
Historian’s Of
ARCHIVES “
Groundwater was collected by driving half-inch pipe with
well points into the soil.
The well point sites on Bikini and