BIRD ISLAND

also called Aves Island, Spanish Isla Aves, or Islote Aves coral-covered sandbank only 15 ft (4.5 m) high at low tide, located in the Caribbean Sea 350 mi (560 km) north of Venezuela and 70 mi west of Dominica. (The island is not a part of the group of Venezuelan islands of similar name, Islas de Aves, comprising Aves de Barlovento and Aves de Sotavento, located 145 mi north of Caracas, just east of Bonaire.) The uninhabited islet was valued in the past for the economic value of its abundant guano, used as fertilizer, and was claimed or occupied by a number of powers (Spain, Venezuela, the United States, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Dominica) after its discovery in 1492. The islet acquired great political significance in the 1970s because of its strategic importance for the control of the Caribbean basin and became the subject of a tense dispute between Venezuela and Dominica. Dominica's claim is based on geographical criteria, since the island rises from a long submarine sandbank, the Aves Ridge, which apparently connects it with Dominica. Venezuela's claim stems from having maintained an armed force there and exercised acts of sovereignty by virtue of which it was awarded to Venezuela in 1865.