No Man’s Land

News from not here but hereabouts.

Officials want secluded island to remain No Man’s Land

NO MAN’S LAND — Three miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, this island of dense brush, rocky beaches, and squawking birdlife is aptly named. No one has lived here for nearly 60 years, and the public is banned from its 628 acres…

…The island, used as an aerial bombing range from 1943 to 1996, is pocked with unexploded munitions that make one of Southern New England’s last wild places a potentially deadly hazard…

…Although munitions have been found, defused, and removed from the surface, an undetermined amount of bombs lie underground and undetected.

“The result could be catastrophic,’’ Koch said of public access to No Man’s Land.

But this nightmare for human visitors is a blessing for its avian guests. Due to its undisturbed nature and shortage of predators, No Man’s Land is an important stop on the Atlantic Flyway for songbirds migrating south as far as South America.

Read all of Brian MacQuarrie’s story in The Boston Globe.

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[Linkmeister]

See also Kahoolawe, the smallest of the eight major islands in Hawai'i. Lots of unexploded ordnance, refuge, and huge bone of contention.