Health
The 74-year-old bird finds a new partner and has just laid another egg
Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, was spotted with her egg and a new mate last week at Midway Atoll, on the northern tip of the Hawaiian archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for the Pacific Region announced that the world's oldest known wild bird has laid an egg - her first in four years - at the age of 74. Jon Plissner, supervising wildlife biologist at the wildlife refuge, said he and his team were "optimistic that the egg will hatch" and that Wisdom would be capable of raising another chick. "A singular joy," he called Wisdom's achievement. Biologists spotted Wisdom on Midway Atoll in 2001 with a red band around her leg that they later discovered had been placed there by the late noted ornithologist Chandler Robbins in 1956. The USFWS estimates that the bird produced up to 60 eggs and hatched up to 30 birds 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. Laysan albatrosses live from 12 to 40 years. Many die after mistakenly swallowing colorful plastic they think is sea food. 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 to nest and raise their young, according to the USFWS. Mating season is between October and November and the species often spends a little more than half the year on the roost, incubating and raising their chicks. During that time, they fly thousands of kilometers across the ocean for food for their babies.
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