Limited Visits to Midway Atoll Planned

By Associated Press

HONOLULU – Isolated from most of the world, Midway Atoll could open to visitors next year on a limited basis.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on a draft plan and might start a regularly scheduled visitor program as early as mid- 2007, said Barbara Maxfield, a spokeswoman forthe agency’s Pacific Islands office.

The tentative plan would accommodate fewer than 30 visitors at a time to the remote U.S. island, a historic World War II military site, she said.

The public can currently only get to the island by boarding a cruise from Asia, hitching a ride with resident government workers or volunteering for three months of environmental duty.

Known for the crucial 1942 Battle of Midway that turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific, Midway is home to spinner dolphins, pristine beaches and hundreds of thousands of seabirds.

Access was largely cut off in 2002 when the Fish and Wildlife Service’s sole tourist operator pulled out, citing difficulties making a profit on trips to the atoll’s remote islands.

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