KILAUEA — As the Beatles once sang, this bird has flown. Prince, the Laysan albatross relocated from his Princeville nest after his father was struck by a car, successfully fledged from his adopted Kilauea home between Friday and Saturday morning.
KILAUEA — As the Beatles once sang, this bird has flown.
Prince, the Laysan albatross relocated from his Princeville nest after his father was struck by a car, successfully fledged from his adopted Kilauea home between Friday and Saturday morning.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Brenda Zaun, who has cared for the 51/2-month-old chick since his father’s April 21 accident, said she was off-island for three days but the chick flew sometime between 10 a.m. Friday and 9 a.m. Saturday.
After albatrosses fledge, they live at sea for three to four years before returning to the place of their birth.
Prince’s father, dubbed “Longshot” after local veterinarian Scott Sims inserted six pins in his shattered right humerus, was also moved to the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kaua‘i’s North Shore.
In late June, Sims removed two of the pins and the wrapping from Longshot’s wing and was encouraged at the bone’s process, though the 18-year-old bird’s fate will depend on nerve, muscle and tendon damage.
“He occasionally gets his leg caught between the wing and the carbon fiber bar,” Zaun said Monday, referring to the remaining splint supporting Longshot’s wing. “He moves that left leg in an irregular arc which causes him to step on the wing.”
Longshot suffered a gash on his inner thigh in the car accident, and Zaun said possible muscle damage could be hindering the limb’s movement. Sims is visiting the refuge tomorrow to check on him and maybe rewrap the wing, meaning a halt in his stretching and physical therapy.
“Longshot’s wing is stiff and I believe it is painful for him for us to stretch it,” Zaun said. “He still does not move it on his own.”
Zaun said none of the seven Midway albatross chicks have fledged from their perch on Crater Hill, though they are expected to go at any time.
A team of Japanese researchers brought the chicks over from the Midway atoll to see if they will return to the place of their birth or the place of their adolescence to breed. If the Midway chicks return to Kilauea, the Japanese team plans to try to reintroduce the Japanese short-tailed albatross to Japan in the same way.
As for Prince’s return to Kaua‘i, well, as the Beatles also sang, it will be a long and winding road.
• Ford Gunter, associate editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or fgunter@kauaipubco.com.
