Part of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge, the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1909 by Theodore Roosevelt’s Executive Order 1019.
Consisting of a chain of islands, reefs and atolls including Nihoa, Necker, French Frigate Shoals, Gardner Pinnacles, Maro Reef, Laysan Island, Lisianski Island and Pearl and Hermes Reef, this refuge extends 800 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. These small islands provide bare rocky land, lowland shrubs and grasses, sand and wetlands habitat for more than 30 species of birds and 14 million breeding sea birds, wintering shorebirds and endangered endemic songbirds and waterfowl.
In addition to the Hawaiian Green sea turtle, this 1,805,403 acre refuge of submerged coral reefs also provides habitat for the endangered Hawaiian monk seal, and more than 7,000 species of coral, algae, mollusks, fish, crustaceans and other marine vertebrates and invertebrates.
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