PRINCEVILLE — It’s easy to imagine why Laysan albatross parents have found the bluffs along Kaweonui Road here suitable nesting sites for their offspring generation after generation. In the absence of the million-dollar homes on the lane, the valley drop-off
PRINCEVILLE — It’s easy to imagine why Laysan albatross parents have found the bluffs along Kaweonui Road here suitable nesting sites for their offspring generation after generation.
In the absence of the million-dollar homes on the lane, the valley drop-off and straight shot to the ocean make it a perfect takeoff spot for fledglings and adults alike.
So it remains that another generation of albatross occupy the front yards of some Princeville residents in this subdivision, where one lady, the self-appointed human guardian of the albatross, roams the neighborhood to make sure the pretty-much-helpless fledglings are doing well.
In Richard Turner’s front yard, Stacey the albatross chick, hatched in February, barely blinks an eye as a visitor pulls up in a vehicle and, upon seeing the bird lounging in the yard, begins snapping pictures.
Stacey, who is named after Turner’s daughter, is oblivious to even some neighborhood beagles who stop by for a brief visit while tethered to their owner, Trevor Cameron, a plumbing contractor who lives across the street. (It reportedly takes DNA testing to determine the sex of an albatross chick.)
This chick’s mother has come back once a year for at least four years to lay eggs.
The mother and father take turns watching and feeding after both built a nest for the egg that is now Stacey, Turner said, proud of his small role in helping to perpetuate a species that is deemed vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union.
Each year an estimated 100,000 albatross are killed by long-line fish hooks. (Visit www.birdlife.org or www.savethealbatross.net for more information.)
Turner gives Stacey twice-a-day showers from his garden hose, and the bird’s parents come back around once a month to feed the chick, he said.
For a small bird (barely 2 feet tall), Stacey already has an impressive, 6-foot wingspan. Adult birds that spend most of their lives at sea have wingspans as wide as 11 feet.
Asked why they think the birds feel safe in the presence of humans, Cameron shrugged his shoulders and said, “They were here before us.”
• Paul C. Curtis, assistant editor and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
