Albatross in 2018: Wisdom still breeding
[114] [more-albatross-14] In 2018, the field log for Albatross is headed “Wisdom still breeding.” The figure kept beside that heading is 1956. It is a count or a date from the work, not a rank of the species’ worth. A zoo birthday card does not replace the log. Bird-scaring streamer line that cuts longline attacks on baited hooks.
Why are longlines the central threat? Baited hooks look like squid. One set can kill dozens of birds. Night setting, weighted lines and tori lines cut the kill when fleets actually use them. What did Coleridge actually do to the bird? The 1798 Rime made killing an albatross a moral crime. The poem outran the biology and still titles newspaper bycatch stories.
The northern royal albatross colony near Dunedin is a mainland breeding site with public hides — rare for a family that usually needs remote islands. Do mice really eat albatross chicks? On Gough and some other islands, introduced house mice attack chicks of albatrosses and petrels. Eradication attempts are now as central as hook rules.
The atoll is also the world’s largest Laysan albatross colony. Plastic and lead paint joined the WWII ruins as management files. How many albatross species are threatened? BirdLife assessments have long placed a majority of Diomedeidae in threatened categories — an unusual concentration for a small family.
Keep 2018, “Wisdom still breeding,” and 1956 together or the note on Albatross stops being that year’s record.2018
Figures to keep
- Year of the note
- 2018
- Figure to keep
- 1956
- Species
- Albatross
- Line in the log
- Wisdom still breeding
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