The Laysan albatross has an Achilles heel. It only has two big nesting sites, and both are at risk from turbulent weather and rising sea levels
Though monarchs range across much of North America, many are, or are the descendants of, insects that have roosted over winter in the same few groves of trees in central Mexico. Destroy those trees and you would imperil the species. The Laysan albatross has a similar vulnerability. Adult birds traverse much of the Pacific Ocean.
A project to do so began in 2015 when America’s navy, its Fish and Wildlife Service and several private conservation organisations led by a group called Pacific Rim Conservation began collaborating to move albatross eggs from another member of the archipelago, Kauai, which supports a small colony of the birds, to Oahu, home of Hawaii’s capital, Honolulu.
While there, they are exposed to fibreglass decoys and solar-powered megaphones that broadcast albatross calls. The hope is that these tricks will encourage the chicks to imprint on the area and come there to breed as adults. Since young Laysans spend three to five years at sea before returning to their birthplace for the first time, it has taken a while to discover whether that works. But the auspices seem reasonably good.
There are caveats. The transfer of eggs from Kauai was a proof of principle rather than a true conservation effort. Kauai is not an atoll, and the nests in question were chosen because they were too close for comfort to a navy airfield there. More seriously, there is the question of protecting the albatrosses if they do establish themselves on Oahu. The probable reason why so many of the birds now nest on Midway and Laysan rather than on larger islands is lack of predators.
Nothing daunted, though, the project’s partners are now expanding. They have taken to accommodating black-footed albatross, a related species with similar habits, on Oahu as well. These have been translocated from both Midway and another atoll, Tern Island. And the partners are also trying to establish colonies far away from the Hawaiian Islands, on the Channel Islands off the coast of California and on Guadalupe, off the coast of Mexico.
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