Almost three months behind schedule, the last Laysan albatross of the season is leaving the island. While most albatrosses took to sea for the winter in late summer, Makana, one of 10 chicks transplanted from Midway to Kaua‘i earlier this
Almost three months behind schedule, the last Laysan albatross of the season is leaving the island.
While most albatrosses took to sea for the winter in late summer, Makana, one of 10 chicks transplanted from Midway to Kaua‘i earlier this year, will leave sometime in the near future, though not under her own power.
Sometime after arriving at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kaua‘i’s North Shore, Makana dislocated the carpus in her left wing. Moloa‘a veterinarian Scott Sims set the joint — essentially the bird’s wrist — and wrapped it, but despite hours of physical therapy with Sims and U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Brenda Zaun, Makana was never able to fully extend the wing.
And there’s not much to be done with a bird with a 6-foot wingspan that can’t fly.
But now, after weeks of searching, Zaun has found Makana a home at the famed Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.
“I’m ecstatic,” Zaun said Thursday. “Seabirds are very difficult to take care of, and we can’t keep her.”
Aquarium curator Christina Slager told Zaun Thursday that she had received final approval, leaving only the logistics of getting the albatross to Monterey.
The aquarium’s Aviculture Team is modifying a rooftop aviary into a quarantine holding pen for Makana, Slager told Zaun. After that, museum staff will begin training her to meet the public.
“The ultimate goal being to use her in the public galleries for regular Meet-the-Albatross presentations,” Slager said in an e-mail to Zaun. “There are many
exciting options.”
For now, Zaun has turned her focus on finding a local airline willing to fly her, Makana and possibly a few volunteers to California to deliver the bird.
Makana, whose name means “gift,” was brought to Kaua‘i from Midway Atoll by a team of Japanese researchers early this year to assess the possibility of reintroducing short-tailed albatrosses to a remote section of the Japanese coast. Researchers are using Laysans because the short-tailed population is far too critical — any loss of chicks could be devastating.
The idea is to see if the chicks return to Midway, where they were born, or Kaua‘i, where they were raised. If it’s the latter, it bodes well for a Japanese reintroduction.
Half of the chicks survived, Makana included, so only four fledged this summer. Bacterial infections due in part to Kaua‘i’s heavy spring rains and the stress of relocation claimed the lives of five of the chicks. Regardless, Zaun remains optimistic, saying the survival rate is high once the birds take to the open ocean, away from mammalian predators.
After fledging, albatrosses spend at least three years at sea before returning to land, and Zaun expects to see at least three of the four Midway birds return in 2009.
While Makana will never enjoy a normal life, she can look forward to a long future — albatrosses have been known to live for 40 years — at a world-famous facility, and hopefully impart some knowledge along the way.
“I’m very excited to work with such an extraordinary bird,” Slager said.
• Ford Gunter, associate editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or fgunter@kauaipubco.com.
