Subject: Re: Short-tailed Albatross
Date: Nov 5 06:15:36 1998
From: "S&C Richardson" - salix at halcyon.com


Tracee Geernaert wrote about Short-tailed Albatrosses:
> Unbanded birds are good news indicating they may have a successful
> colony somewhere else. Torishima Island is volcanic so the population is
> under threat from nature as well as the longline fleet.

Indeed, short-tails do have another nesting colony. It is about 1/10th the size
of the Torishima colony, so I imagine it holds roughly 100 birds of the
estimated 1000 presently in existence. As difficult as the Torishima colony is
to access, the other (island name escapes me) is worse, so it is rarely
visited. Even with the second colony, relatively safe from vulcanism, the
population of this species is in a precarious state and losing individuals to
longliners is sad.

Anyone interested in Short-tailed Albatrosses ought to read Diane Ackerman's
essay on them, which originally appeared in the New Yorker, but was reprinted
in her book The Rarest of the Rare.

Anyone who wants to see the magnificent "golden gooney" should make a winter
visit to Midway Atoll.
--
Scott Richardson
Olympia, Washington
salix at halcyon.com