Tanager Expedition

Led by Lieutenant Commander Samuel Wilder King on the minesweeper USS Tanager (AM-5), and Alexander Wetmore directing the team of scientists, the expedition studied the plant[1] animal life, and geology of the central Pacific islands.

The expedition began with the goal of exterminating domestic rabbits that had been introduced to Laysan island by the guano industry in 1902.

[5] On June 22, the Tanager arrived in the French Frigate Shoals and remained for six days, completing the first comprehensive survey of the atoll.

Aerial survey and mapping flights over Johnston were conducted with a Douglas DT-2 floatplane carried on her fantail, which was hoisted into the water for take off.

[7] Archaeologist Kenneth P. Emory of the Bishop Museum cleared out 60 sites on Nihoa and collected and cataloged artifacts.

This list is incomplete In 1990, the U.S. congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act which requires federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American cultural items and human remains to their people.

In the 1990s, Hui Mālama (Hui Mālama I Na Kūpuna O Hawaiʻi Nei), a Native Hawaiian group, spent two years petitioning the United States Fish and Wildlife Service for the release of the bones (iwi) from seven Hawaiian skeletons originally taken from Nihoa and Necker Island by the Tanager Expedition in 1924.

[8] The bones were finally released to the group, and in November, 1997, Hui Mālama chartered a yacht and travelled to Nihoa and Necker to rebury the remains.