We covered about 275 m of coastline. As on 

 the reef flat we saw no dead fish or inverte- 

 brates, nor any indication of petroleum in the 

 water. 



We made survey 3 off the south coast about 

 1.7 km southeast of the wreck (Figure 1) on 

 September 16. The wind had abated and the sea 

 was the calmest we had seen since our arrival. 

 The heaviest beach-stranded kill had occurred 

 in this general area. We surveyed the reef flat 

 for about 125 m. The reef in this area was 

 similar to that in survey area 2, but the fish 

 population, dominated by Scarus sordidus , Acan - 

 thurus triostegus , A. achilles , and Ctenochaetus 

 striatus , was larger. We saw no squirrelfish, 

 grouper, or adult humphead parrotfish on the 

 reef flat. The reef front dropped off abruptly 

 to about 8 m. We were again impressed by the 

 abundance of fish life, which was far greater 

 than on the reef flat. Here also, parrotfishes 

 and surgeonfishes dominated. We saw several 

 different species of Scarus and numerous large 

 C. gibbus ; in addition, C. argus and at least 

 three other species of groupers and two species 

 of carangids were plentiful. We saw a number 

 of squirrelfish, which appeared to be the same 

 species, H. lacteoguttatus , which occurred in 

 the kill. As in survey 2, we saw most of the 

 species that were in the kill, plus many more. 

 Those species which were most abundant in the 

 kill were apparently also the most abundant 

 offshore. Humphead parrotfish and squirrelfish 

 were exceptions. We encountered numerous 

 blacktip sharks behaving in the same manner 

 as on the previous day. 



Sea Off Southeastern End of 

 Wilkes Island 



The area in front of the Pacific Missile Range 

 facility about 300 to 400 m northwest of the 

 R. C. Stoner was chosen for survey 4 (Figure 

 1). Because of the prevailing southwesterly 

 winds and possibly the current, very little oil 

 had washed up there, but instead had been driv- 

 en up the channel into the inner harbor. On our 

 survey of the beach on Wilkes Island, we had 

 found little oil and few dead fish. Because that 

 area had apparently been relatively little af- 

 fected, we thought it would serve as a useful 

 comparison to the two more easterly surveys. 

 Local scuba divers told us it was one of their 

 favorite diving spots, and that there were many 

 fish on the reef front and sharks were rare. 

 Curiously, during our brief survey, we found 

 neither the reef flat nor the reef front nearly 



as abundant in fish as the previously investi- 

 gated areas; we saw few parrotfishes and no 

 dead fish in the water, but we were bothered by 

 blacktip sharks and later by two larger (2.0- 

 2.5 m) gray sharks. The latter, which we could 

 not positively identify as to species, manifested 

 the same aggressive tendencies as the black- 

 tips, making very close passes. We were a bit 

 more leery of large sharks with this type of 

 behavior and left the area posthaste. 



CONCLUSIONS 



By noon of September 16, large storm seas 

 were rapidly building up on the reefs and it 

 was impossible to continue the survey. That 

 night typhoon Sarah struck Wake with winds up 

 to 67 m per sec (140 miles per hr) causing 

 great damage to the island's facilities. The 

 typhoon, however , had one saving grace: it blew 

 away virtually all of the oil that had accumu- 

 lated in the inner harbor and even did a good 

 job of scouring its oil-fouled banks, solving in 

 one night a problem which would have taken 

 many weeks to overcome. On the morning of 

 September 17, the harbor was clear and clean. 

 A brief survey of the affected beach areas dis- 

 closed that the only remaining evidence of pol- 

 lution was black oil embedded in reef flat 

 crevices and impregnated in coral. The author- 

 ities on the island were evacuating all nones- 

 sential personnel because of an acute housing 

 shortage. Thus, we were unable to make an 

 underwater survey of the now oil-free inner 

 harbor. This was unfortunate. Even though we 

 have no "before pollution" data on the harbor, 

 it would have been of great value to have an 

 accurate assessment of the biological condi- 

 tions of a shallow confined area of this nature, 

 the surface of which was completely covered 

 with a thick film of heavy oil and the subsur- 

 face contaminated with light fuel for over a 

 week. 



We estimate that about 2,500 kg of dead fish 

 were washed up on the south shore during the 

 period of maximum petroleum escapement, the 

 first week after the R. C. Stoner had foundered. 

 Our best guess is that most of the kill had oc- 

 curred on the shallow reef flat bordering the 

 coast. The available evidence appears to sup- 

 port this theory. Numerous groupers and squir- 

 relfish occurred in the kill. Apparently, all 

 of the squirrelfish were H. lacteoguttatus and 

 nearly all the groupers were C. argus . We saw 

 neither of these groups on any of the reef 



10 



