The teaching albatross

[Les C]

A few years ago, I led a group of birders around the Islands and we were able to access Midway Atoll. Tens of thousands of albatross, Laysan, Black-footed, and a handful of Short-tailed, nest and visit there. It is incredible how many small plastic things show up there, mostly carried in the gut of these squid-feeding birds. Jack Jeffrey, renown Hawaiian bird photographer and biologist, told me that when he worked on a bird monitoring project on Kure Atoll, the last bit of islands in the Northwest Chain, they collected all the plastic that they could and made a large pile more than 6' tall. Most of the plastic pieces are Bic-like cigarette lighters, along with various sailing and fishing bits. Absolutely incredible! Also, the fledging albatross on Midway have another toxin to be protected from: bits of lead-based paint flaking off the old barracks and other building left over from the military presence. The FWS is slowly removing some old buildings and scraping/repainting others.