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Black-footed Albatross

Liz Bonnin presents the black-footed albatross of Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

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Liz Bonnin presents the black-footed albatross of Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Two dusky-brown birds point their bills skywards to cement their lifelong relationship, these are black-footed albatrosses are plighting their troth in a former theatre of war. At only a few square kilometres in size, the island of Midway is roughly half way between North America and Japan. Once it was at the heart of the Battle of Midway during World War Two, but today it forms part of a Wildlife Refuge run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and is home to white laysan albatross and the darker Black footed Albatross. Around 25,000 pairs of Black-foots breed here. Each pair's single chick is fed on regurgitated offal for six months, after which it learns to fly and then can be vulnerable to human activity on the airbase. But careful management of both species of albatrosses near the airstrip has reduced the number of casualties to a minimum.

Producer : Andrew Dawes

Available now

2 minutes

Last on

Tue 6 Dec 2022 05:58

Black-footed Albatross (Phoebastria nigripes)

Webpage image courtesy of Michael Pitts / naturepl.com.

NPL Ref Β© Michael Pitts / naturepl.com.

Broadcasts

  • Tue 13 Jan 2015 05:58
  • Mon 25 Jan 2016 05:58
  • Sun 31 Jan 2016 08:58
  • Tue 10 Sep 2019 05:58
  • Wed 21 Oct 2020 05:58
  • Tue 6 Dec 2022 05:58

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