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In early April, a powerful typhoon formed over the northwestern Pacific Ocean, growing stronger and stronger as it swirled toward the Mariana Islands, a 15-island archipelago east of the Philippines. By the time it reached the islands of Saipan and Tinian on April 14, the wind was gusting 130 miles per hour, rain fell in sheets and huge waves pounded the shores.

This super typhoon, called Typhoon Sinlaku, was among the strongest early-season storms recorded in the past 75 years. It caused widespread damage on the islands — home to approximately 50,000 people — leaving most without power, tearing roofs off homes and destroying vital infrastructure.

The U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or CNMI, includes 14 of the islands in the archipelago and the remaining island, Guam, is a U.S. territory. The residents, a mix of Indigenous Chamorro people and settlers, are American citizens and U.S. institutions and agencies are well represented on the islands.

On Rota, University of Washington researchers have been working to stabilize the population of the endangered Mariana crow for decades after research signaled rapid decline. Beth Gardner, a UW professor of environmental and forest sciences, and Jonathan Bakker, a UW professor of environmental and forest sciences, oversee several projects on Tinian, a small forested island roughly 12 miles long and 6 miles wide.

The first project, launched in 2021, focused on a small, formerly endangered songbird called the Tinian monarch. It has since expanded into broader study of native birds and plant restoration.

UW News spoke with Gardner, Kaeli Swift, a research scientist in Gardner’s lab, and Fletcher Moore, a graduate student in Bakker’s lab, about the impacts of the typhoon and how they plan to resume their work on the islands.

What first brought you to Tinian? What makes the island unique?

Beth Gardner: We were initially approached by a consulting firm with a contract to study the Tinian monarch, which led us to form a relationship with the U.S. Navy based on the island. They were impressed by our work and efforts to integrate into the community and funded our group to continue developing research on Tinian.

Kaeli Swift: Tinian’s unique ecological character reflects its complicated history. The island is about 60% forested but the forests are primarily composed of a mix of introduced species. Centuries of colonization — by the Spanish, Germans, Japanese and now U.S. — has resulted in immense habitat destruction. Tinian was heavily bombed during World War II and then became the U.S. assembly and launch point for the atomic bomb.

Fletcher Moore: By the end of the war, over 95% of the forest had been cleared, obviously to the extreme detriment of all the native plants and animals. Now, over two-thirds of the island is controlled in a lease agreement by the U.S. military. That land is largely undeveloped, but the U.S. military plans to invest in major new projects on Tinian in the next decade.

What does your work involve?

KS: We have been doing forest bird monitoring on Tinian for five years. We’re trying to understand threats to native birds by studying offspring survival and predator populations — primarily rats and cats. Our recent work involves acoustic monitoring, specifically looking at how birds are impacted by human-related noise associated with development on the island.

FM: We are working on a long-term native forest restoration project based on the observation that the lack of native plants was limiting wildlife populations on Tinian. We are supporting development of a native plant nursery by partnering with local entities to enhance the space, hire full time staff, and collect and propagate plants. We had about 2,000 native trees representing 20 different species in the nursery, and planted about 300 of those trees in the past six months.

How will it be impacted by Typhoon Sinlaku?

FM: The site where we planted the young trees is on an isolated corner of the island that is difficult to get to in the best of times. Right now, the road is totally inaccessible. We’re not sure when we will be able to get out there to assess the damage and resume regular restoration work, like controlling invasive species and planting other species. The nursery also suffered a lot of damage; almost half of its plants were destroyed. So it’s going to require a pretty big reset.

KS: Our work involves venturing into the jungle to set up cameras and acoustic recording devices for monitoring birds. Our access to those sites will be limited until the roads are cleared and even then, the nature of the vegetative landscape will have changed. We can’t really compare data on birds from one year to the next when there have been major changes to vegetation on the island.

BG: That little songbird we study has probably gone quiet for now. As we’ve seen in the past, their populations will likely suffer from this type of devastation. The typhoon sat on top of Tinian and Saipan for somewhere around 50 hours. We don’t know the full extent of the damage yet, but I think things will be completely different when we get back out there.

What happens now?

FM: It is difficult to access resources on the Marianas and especially hard on Tinian. We had to transport everything we needed for these projects from elsewhere. Shipping can take weeks or months and building materials are often twice as expensive as they would be on the mainland U.S.

When it comes to our work, it’s really difficult to see the nursery destroyed and to see the materials we spent months and a lot of money gathering torn apart. But, it’s going to be especially hard for the people who live on the island and don’t have grants funding their rebuilding efforts. So there are just a lot of practical challenges to recovery out there that even folks affected by disasters in the mainland U.S. might not face to the same degree.