188 DASA 2019-2 We returned the day after these photographs were taken. were numbers of dead birds on the beach (Figure 34), There The logical 7 ’ ie . a pe cr I ne 7 ee assumption, I suppose, that one would make is that these birds must have died from radiation damage. They were all right the day before, at least they were alive, Thus, we assume that they died from radiation damage. We took a look, examining them very closely, We tried to measure various things, do the best autopsy possible at the time, but we could find little or no radiation effects. So why did they die? This is the question we had to try to answer, fail ec Figure 34. Dead terns island, Eniwetok Atoll. From L. Donaldson. In our report we would just say they died of radiation, but we had to draw upon a little more background, the natural history of these animals. We have to realize that there's no water on the island for them to drink. If there's no water on the island they get their mois- ture from their food, their food being the fish in the sea. The salin-ity of the fish in the sea is the same as yours and rnine, or about 75/100 of 1 percent. The birds are able to maintain their moisture balance if they can feed. CONARD: If not, they may die from desiccation, Did those birds die in one day? DONALDSON: Yes. These pictures were made on subsequent days. CONARD: It seems as if it's a pretty quick death, DONALDSON: we Butit's terribly hot. FREMONT-SMITH: They dried out fast.