The world’s oldest wild bird still laying eggs
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The oldest known bird in the wild is a female Laysan Albatross named Wisdom, and US Fish and Wildlife Service officials said they were glad to report that she appeared in Hawaii about two weeks ago, with a mate.
“We expect her back any day now to lay her egg,” said Bret Wolfe, deputy manager of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge,
Wisdom has been flying to Hawaii’s Midway Atoll to raise chicks year after year since 1956, when scientists first started tracking her. They estimate that she was around five years old when they attached her tracking band, making her at least 64 now.
“What is amazing is that 38 years ago when I was stationed on Midway, I may have walked right by her,” wrote Facebook user Ken Gill, in a comment on the PapahÄ�naumokuÄ�kea Marine National Monument.
Midway Atoll is the world largest nesting ground for albatrosses, sea birds that can fly thousands of miles without ever flapping their wings (which span up to six feet). Wildlife officials estimate that Wisdom has flown 50,000 miles a year, or between two and three million miles since she was first banded.
That Wisdom is still alive is remarkable—sea bird populations have decline by 70% in the last half-century—as is her continued parenting. An albatross can lay one egg per year. Successfully incubating, hatching, and raising the chick takes five to six months.
“Her ability to continue to hatch chicks during the last half century is beyond impressive despite the threats that albatross face at sea,” said biologist Pete Leary, in a news release from the wildlife refuge in 2014, shortly after Wisdom had hatched a new chick.
Albatrosses usually mate for life, and both parents take care of the chick from incubation to fledging. Officials speculate that Wisdom has had more than one mate, however, and she’s probably raised 35 or 36 chicks. She lost her egg last year, and other years she and her mate may have simply taken breaks from breeding.
Scientists have limited knowlege of the reproductive capacities of various bird species, and whether Wisdom will run out of eggs before she runs out of life is unknown.
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Does birds even live that long???
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lao jiao leh
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the real lao jiao has appeared
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Then I Know it now..
