Comments on: The Tyrant of Clipperton Island

By: kit carson

kit carson — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 04:22:35 +0000

One thing is happening today, 7/16/2023, the birds on the island are surviving but the food source is not always good for them. The masked Booby has been having angel wing occurring on the island far to much. It leaves the birds flightless which means the parents have stayed with them for up to 2 years feeding their old chicks. What has happened since then, I don’t know.

By: JarvisLoop

JarvisLoop — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 11:12:01 +0000

Finished.

By: Pelican Pete

Pelican Pete — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 19:02:49 +0000

I sailed around the island and went ashore in 1980, so I claim it as mine now. I was there just days after Cousteau left, and found some of his trash. I hope the French will be good custodians of this unique island.

By: Drummer

Drummer — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 16:54:46 +0000

Twenty years ago a friend of mine had visited the island and he told me the story of the abandoned Clipperton people. I was fascinated and searched the facts in the US and Mexico. The result was a 500 page Novel that was published in former East Germany. Whoever is interested and able to read in the German language may find the book on Amazon. The title is CLIPPERTON the author Ivo Mansmann.

By: Rom1

Rom1 — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:56:03 +0000

Very interesting story, already knew about that but not in such details.
To Wilson2012, you can laugh about the French circling the island to claim property but it was the usual proceeding for centuries and from a lot of country including even your beloved England, Dutch, Spain, Portugese and I think even the US might have proceed this way for small islands.
I think a lot of people laughed a lot when the US claimed there were WMD in Irak just to gain property on OIL !

By: hector arnaud

hector arnaud — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 05:46:02 +0000

Hi Melisa

I would like talk with you because this is the story of muy family

My granfather Ramón Arnaud born in Clipperton and muy Mother wrote a full story since they arrive when the MExican goverment send them to the island

I will appreciated you sonest respons

Sincerely

Family Arnaud

By: jb

jb — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 06:53:19 +0000

@Woody: Clearly, your grasp of ecosystems dynamics is laughably poor. Methinks it would behoove of you to bone up on this stuff next time, before embarrassing yourself…

Otherwise, another fascinating article from DI!

Regards,

By: T

Sat, 19 Jul 2014 12:25:34 +0000

Science, society, survival.
Hey, maybe I just invented a new DI slogan!

By: angus murray

angus murray — Thu, 08 May 2014 23:29:28 +0000

here’s a couple more interesting snippets, there’s some weird little sulfer based organisms deep down in the lagoon getting energy from a thermal vent and in the 40’s the brits used the island as a staging post for an abortive effort to blaze a trail of island airstrips across the pacific. they wanted a piece of the action in the pacific theatre at the end of ww2 but fat man and little boy put a stop to their imperialist machinations. i gleaned the first from a nature show on tv, it may or may not be true (that’s just my carbon based prejudice showing through), the second i know for a fact because my dad, an raf nav commanded the survey team’s support flight. he had some funny stories to tell about his fun in acapulco while his mates were stuck fighting in the european winter! they got caught with their pants down by a hurricane and had to run their pby’s at full throttle sitting at anchor in the lagoon, it worked ok for a while until the kelp torn loose by the storm built up on the anchor ropes. they had to go for a swim in the eye of the hurricane, clear the weed off so they didn’t nose under when the storm hit from the other side. dad put his engineer in for the george cross, the other stories about getting thrown in jail by russian spies, chilling with errol on his yacht and setting up an air commodore to lose his hat in an acapulco brothel are too far fetched to share, suffice to say whatever her metabolism, mother nature just HAS to be latina!

By: Woody Brison

Woody Brison — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 19:57:23 +0000

At one point, pigs were introduced on the island. They ate the crabs and did quite well. With the crabs not eating every green growing thing on the island as soon as it should poke up its little cotyledon, the vegetation started to do pretty well too. The island was turning into a tropical forest like many of them. Then some environmentalists got incensed because this is interfering with the natural course of the ecosystem. They shot all the pigs. The crabs came back and took over. So the island has returned to its “natural” ie. out of balance state, as if pigs, vegetation, and any other species that can migrate to the island, including man weselves and any other thing that might ride with us, are not part of nature.