[TN-Bird] America's oldest wild bird is a new mom
- From: "David Aborn" <David-Aborn@xxxxxxx>
- To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "'heidi messerly'" <birdlover1980@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 07:42:47 -0500
9 March 2011
She's at least 60 years old, flies some 50,000 miles a year, has had almost
three dozen kids - and now she's got another one.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports that Wisdom, a Laysan albatross
whom they describe as the Northern Hemisphere's oldest wild bird, is rearing
another chick on Midway Atoll in the Northern Pacific.
"To know that she can still successfully raise young at age 60-plus, that is
beyond words," Bruce Peterjohn, the chief of the North American Bird Banding
Program, said in a press release.
Biologist John Klavitter, deputy manager of the Midway Atoll National
Wildlife Refuge, spotted and photographed Wisdom on the atoll in February,
according to a report from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The bird was first identified and banded by a USGS researcher in 1956 when
she was incubating an egg, according to the USGS. As the Laysan albatross
can't breed before age 5 - and spends much of its life before that at sea -
scientists estimate Wisdom is at least 60 years old. She may be even older,
though, as most Laysan albatrosses don't breed until age 8 or 9 after an
extended courtship, according to the USGS.
The Laysan albatross mates for life. No word on whether a 60-year-old Mr.
Wisdom is somewhere on Midway or whether Wisdom is charting new skies in
that area too.
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