The gun emplacement on the very top in this photo was the death trap. Rough seas, remoteness and vertical rock faces had kept it secret for years.

Atop a precipitous rock island in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, a WWII gun emplacement became a graveyard for nesting murres.  The murres fell into the structure but couldn’t fly out the narrow gun slots.  When Refuge Biologist Leslie Slater, Maintenance Worker Bob Schulmeister, and Army Corps of Engineers (COE) specialists helicoptered onto the precarious perch they found dead birds piled three feet deep in one gun emplacement.   The trap door on the roof had been propped open years ago allowing murres nesting on the roof to fall through.  Refuge staff closed the trap door with wire mesh and a warning note to any future human visitors not to disturb the repair so as to prevent future carnage.  Future plans are to drill escape holes in the concrete bunkers. 

The seabird death trap was reported to the Service by adventurers who had boated to the island in the rough seas of the Gulf of Alaska, jumped from boat to cliff in a maneuver known as “bump and run” and scaled the cliff to investigate the WWII outpost.  Refuge staff also found a stash of WWII-era lead acid batteries which the COE will remove.  WWII rolled over Alaska Maritime Refuge leaving numerous structures, contaminants, and ordnance.  The COE is responsible for clean-up of formerly used defense sites.