The silver lining to this cloud is that 1000 Short-tailed Albatrosses is
three or four times the known populations just 10 years ago and about 100
times the known population 20-30 years ago. They are making a very strong
comeback and at this rate may be regular visitors to the Straits of Juan de
Fuca once again.

Gene Hunn.

At 06:15 AM 11/5/98 -0800, you wrote:
>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
>
>
>