A Remote, Protected Seabird Paradise May Soon Host a Rocket Landing Site

Of the nearly 600 national wildlife refuges in the United States, Johnston Atoll is arguably the one visitors are least likely to set foot on—unless they’re seabirds. A former military base located some 700 miles southwest of Hawai‘i, today Johnston and the atoll’s three other tiny islands are a haven for 1.5 million seabirds from 15 species. That transformation was no easy task, and this flourishing refuge with a complicated history may soon face new challenges if the government builds a proposed rocket landing site.

President Calvin Coolidge declared Johnston a federal bird refuge in 1926 due to its remarkable abundance and diversity of seabirds. Eight years later, with World War II on the horizon, President Franklin D. Roosevelt placed the atoll under military control. For seven decades the armed forces undertook activities there ranging from nuclear weapons testing to chemical weapons storage and disposal. By 2004 the military had removed most of the infrastructure and turned Johnston over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage as a sanctuary for nesting seabirds. 

The FWS put the refuge off-limits to the public and instituted strict biosecurity protocols, and nature quickly began reclaiming the few vestiges of human activity. In 2010, however, biologists found that yellow crazy ants had made their way onto Johnston and were devastating Red-tailed Tropicbirds and other ground-nesting species. “It was like a horror movie,” says former FWS wildlife biologist Beth Flint. “They would swarm over any living thing on the ground.”

The agency launched an intensive project to battle the ants, and in 2013 I led the seventh Crazy Ant Strike Team, a crew of four volunteer biologists on a six-month stint to help eliminate them from the refuge. When we arrived after a three-day journey by sea, we found Red- and White-tailed Tropicbirds tending chicks by a rubble-strewn dock and Red-footed Boobies roosting in bushes along the derelict runway. But birds were conspicuously sparse or absent across the ant-infested swath of the island, unable to withstand insects that bit and sprayed formic acid, which blinded and maimed those that refused to abandon their nests. It took the FWS 11 years and 20 rotating crews, but by 2021 it had eradicated the invasive species—an unequivocal conservation success story.

Today Johnston, the only landmass within 570,000 square miles of ocean, is a rare bright spot at a time when seabird populations across the globe are plummeting. “This is a unique place,” says Don Lyons, director of conservation science for Audubon’s Seabird Institute, “an isolated piece of land surrounded by a very huge ocean, and thus offers a really unique opportunity for seabirds to nest.” Those include a stronghold of 10,000-plus Red-footed Boobies and more than a third of the world’s total population of Red-tailed Tropicbirds. Shorebirds such as Bristle-thighed Curlews and Pacific Golden-Plovers also migrate through, resting and refueling on their journey from breeding grounds in Alaska. The surrounding waters, part of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, host a plethora of ocean life, including more than 300 species of fish, 50-something species of coral, and green sea turtles. 

Now biologists and conservationists are concerned that these hard-won conservation gains could be in danger. In March the U.S. Air Force announced plans to build two landing pads at Johnston Atoll to test commercial rockets for the Rocket Cargo Vanguard program, which aims to expedite the transport of military cargo around the globe. (While FWS manages the refuge’s natural resources, the U.S. Air Force retains jurisdiction.) The pads would accept up to 10 landings per year over four consecutive years, activity that would involve SpaceX rockets, The Washington Post reported. Construction could start this year. “People have fought to restore these fragile ecosystems,” says Janith Taylor, a retired FWS biologist now with the National Wildlife Refuge Association. “We’re on the edge of losing it all to commercial development.”

Constructing and operating rocket landing pads within a refuge would be unprecedented. Wildlife refuges are established to conserve native species dependent on their lands and waters; the government prohibits, or strictly regulates, actions that could negatively impact them. If it moves forward, the project could set a precedent for development in other refuges and national monuments—places specifically set aside to protect ecological and cultural resources.

It would also have immediate impacts. The project would require significant infrastructure, degrade habitat, and pose additional risks to wildlife, experts say. Human activity could also open the door to more invasive species, and light pollution could disrupt nesting green sea turtles and nocturnal seabirds, such as Wedge-tailed Shearwaters. Noise pollution—particularly from the rockets’ 110-decibel sonic boom—could interrupt seabirds’ ability to communicate with mates and locate their chicks when returning from sea. Conservationists point to the harm that activity at SpaceX’s Texas launch site has caused to the surrounding Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge, including strewing concrete and metal debris across the landscape and damaging shorebird nests.

Equipment malfunction is another concern. “There’s always the possibility of an accidental or catastrophic failure, god forbid,” says Mark Rauzon, a biogeographer at Laney College and author of Isles of Amnesia, which details human history on Pacific islands. Johnston experienced a serious calamity in 1962 when a plutonium missile launch failed, spewing radioactive waste across the atoll. The waste was cleaned up and stored under coral rubble at a site now nicknamed Mt. Pluto. (Volunteer biologists took the "don't dig in the soil" rule very seriously.)

The birds that nest and roost on the island year-round are highly sensitive to disturbance, as I saw myself. Just walking by while conducting surveys was enough to cause Sooty Terns and Brown Noddies to temporarily fly off their eggs in alarm. Given Johnston’s remote location and seabirds’ instinct to return to the same nest sites each year, the birds can’t—and won’t—simply move to another island to breed, says Betty Anne Schreiber, a seabird biologist who studied Johnston’s seabirds for two decades while the site was an active military base. Back then, there were far fewer birds: an estimated 600 Red-Tailed Tropicbird pairs in 1984, for instance, compared to 13,000 today.

In addition to the proposed landing site, Johnston’s seabirds face another challenge. In April, President Trump signed an executive order lifting a commercial fishing ban in the surrounding marine national monument—a move that could deplete a vital food source and risk birds and marine mammals becoming ensnared in fishing equipment. 

The government plans to release an environmental assessment of the landing pads that concludes it would have no significant impact. Once the assessment is published, the clock starts ticking: Unless the government undertakes a more detailed environmental impact statement (EIS) that evaluates the project’s effects on wildlife, construction could begin soon after a 30-day public comment period ends. During that window, Taylor’s organization will encourage the government to do an EIS. “This island deserves to have a thorough proposal that has alternatives,” she says. 

Birds on Johnston have bounced back before. If a rocket site moves forward, they could potentially do so again at some point in the future, if or when a different policy prevails. But the island that served the military’s needs decades ago doesn’t play the same role in today’s rapidly changing world. It’s become an increasingly important sanctuary, a singular place where seabirds are increasing, not declining. A four-year rocket test gambles the lives of 1.5 million seabirds—and the long-term survival of these vulnerable populations. 

This story originally ran in the Summer 2025 issue as “Pacific Paradise.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.