2 weeks Ago
The world’s oldest known wild bird has sparked “special joy” among scientists after she laid an egg – her first in four years – at the age of 74. Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, was spotted with the egg and a new partner last week at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, an island sanctuary located on the far northern end of the Hawaiian archipelago. “She did it again!” the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) for the Pacific Region exclaimed on social media platform X.
Jon Plissner, supervisory wildlife biologist at wildlife refuge, said he and his team were “optimistic that the egg will hatch,” that that Wisdom would be fit enough to raise another chick. “A special joy,” he called Wisdom’s achievement. A video posted on USFWS’ Facebook page showed Wisdom rubbing her head against her new partner before he sat down to incubate the egg.
Biologists spotted Wisdom at Midway Atoll in 2001 with a red band around her leg that they later discovered was placed there by the late renowned ornithologist Chandler Robbins in 1956. USFWS estimates that the bird has produced up to 60 eggs and mothered as many as 30 chicks in her lifetime. For decades, she returned to the island with the same partner Akeakamai, but he has not been seen since at least 2021.
Experts tagged her new mate last week after spotting them together. Laysan albatrosses live between 12 and 40 years. Many die after mistakenly swallowing colorful plastic which they think is food in the sea.
Wisdom has intrigued biologists who are desperate to find out how she manages to live such a long life and still have babies. Each year, millions of albatrosses return to Midway Atoll to nest and raise their young, according to USFWS. The mating season is between October and November and the species often spends a little more than half of the year at the refuge, incubating and raising their chick.
During that time, they fly thousands of miles across the ocean for food to back to their babies. With Laysan albatrosses flying up to 50,000 miles per year as an adult, Wisdom would have flown multiple round trips to the moon by her age, according to USFWS..
