Editing Kiritimati (section)

=== Former egg gathering ===
Egg collecting for food on a massive scale was frequent in the past but is now outlawed. It is to be noted that the sooty terns for example could sustain occasional collection of effectively all of a season's eggs (over 10&nbsp;million), if given sufficient time to recover and if cats are absent. In theory, even egg collecting on a scale that significantly decreases costly food imports could be possible, but not until the cat and rat populations have been brought under control. [[Poaching]] remains a concern; with the population rising and spreading out on Kiritimati, formerly remote bird colonies have become more accessible; the [[red-tailed tropicbirds]] and the ''[[Sula (bird)|Sula]]'' especially are strongly affected by hunting and disturbance. Tropicbirds are mainly poached for their feathers, which are used in local arts and handicraft; it would certainly be possible to obtain them from living birds as was routinely done at the height of the Polynesian civilisation.<ref name=teebaki1993/>