Tern Island (Hawaii)

Tern Island is a coral island located in the French Frigate Shoals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is located within both the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge and the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, and is also a part of the Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve managed by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) & the State of Hawaii's NWHI Marine Refuge. It is approximately 490 miles (790 kilometers) west-northwest of O'ahu, and about halfway between O'ahu and Midway Atoll.

The island provides breeding habitat for 18 species of seabirds, green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas), and Hawaiian monk seals (Neomonachus schauinslandi).

The U.S. Navy enlarged the island to construct a Naval Air Station in 1942, which operated from 1942 to 1946. The island was also used as a U.S. Coast Guard base from 1952 to 1979, and as a Fish and Wildlife Service field station from 1979 to 2012. While the FWS no longer maintains a year-round presence at Tern Island following extensive storm damage to the facilities in 2012, seasonal field teams do still occupy the island regularly, typically in the summer. The island is still visited periodically. The French Frigate Shoals Airport has been unattended since 2010 and is only acceptable for emergency landings.

In 2013, Google collaborated with FWS and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) staff to image Tern Island, along with East Island, Laysan, Lisianski Island, and Pearl and Hermes Atoll, for a Google Street View project to allow the islands to be viewed online via Google Maps. The viewer takes a path along much of the length of the airstrip and part of the shore, offers a series of panoramic images from head height.

Some repair work has been done to the thousands of feet of seawall built during WWII, but the significant deterioration still poses risks to wildlife. The seawall, an inactive runway, and some small buildings still remain on the island today.