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Wisdom, the world’s oldest known breeding bird in the wild, continues to amaze the world.
At the approximate age of 67, the seasoned, female Laysan albatross has once again returned and laid an egg at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Battle of Midway National Memorial.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed that Wisdom and her mate, Akeakamai, returned to the refuge at Papahanaumokuakea
Marine National Monument in late November. On Dec. 13 wildlife service staff spotted Akeakamai on the nest incubating an egg. Wisdom returned this month and is now incubating the egg.
“An albatross egg is important to the overall albatross population,” said Bob Peyton, project leader for Midway Atoll Refuge and Memorial, in a statement. “If you consider that albatross don’t always lay an egg each year and when they do they only raise one chick at a time — each egg is tremendously important in maintaining the survival of a colony.”
Albatross parents take turns incubating the egg, and one cares for it while the other heads out to sea to forage for food, sometimes for as long as a month.
Wisdom was first banded on Midway Atoll in 1956. She has returned to Midway almost every year since 2002.
Since 2006 she has successfully raised and fledged at least nine chicks and logged millions of miles of flight. Federal wildlife officials estimate that she may have delivered 30 to
35 chicks over her lifetime.
She also laid an egg at about the same time a year ago, and the chick hatched in February.
“She’s the most famous resident on Midway,” said Kate Toniolo, deputy superintendent for Papahanaumokuakea. “She’s a small part of a very large, very important colony.”
Midway Atoll’s small islands are a predator-free
haven for more than 3 million seabirds, including the largest colony of albatrosses in the world. The albatrosses return to the island from October to December every year to nest and raise their young.
As expert soarers, they can travel hundreds of miles per day, but they face threats from rising sea levels, longline fishing entanglement and the ingestion of plastic debris mistaken for food.
More than 70 percent of the world’s Laysan albatross population, listed as near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, and 29 species of birds rely on the refuge as a safe place to breed and rear their chicks.
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