THE BAD NEWS:
What we want to know on Tern is....WHO is the buddhahead who keeps putting zip ties and fishing line, tied around the feet of albatross?!? This is something that has been going on for years -- we find them on Tern, Midway, and even Ka'ena Point. We find around 10 birds a year like this, just on Tern. Poor albatross, with zip ties or fishing line tied around their legs -- probably someone trying to keep them as a pet, although a few could potentially be by accident -- ends up cutting off the circulation to their legs, cutting into them, and probably killing many of them. Can't be fun for anyone.
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| Melinda Conners is holding an albatross we found with the regular metal band (above, with room to spare), and a zip tie around its leg. The zip tie is cutting into the birds leg, and had we not removed it, eventually caused the leg to lose circulation, possibly rot off, and cause death to the bird. Not so good. |
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| This is the same bird as above, with the zip tie removed. This bird will heal now, and get along fine. There are probably many others that aren't so lucky. Let people know that this is NOT an okay thing to do! Notice that the metal band (under melinda's thumb) is still round, has extra room, no sharp edges, and is not squeezing the bird's leg. We spend a lot of time training, and making sure the band is the right size, shape and material, not to cut into the bird's leg. |
BUT THERE'S GOOD NEWS!!!
The albatross -- and the other species here -- are doing well, and enjoying this nesting season. Lots of happy birds (and volunteers!)
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| A Laysan albatross on her nest. Albatross nest on the ground, piling up sand, rocks, shells, sticks, grass -- whatever is handy -- into a mound. It rained lately, so they have built their nests up higher to protect from any flooding rain water. |
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| Gotta check and make sure that egg is still there.... Really, this Laysan is talking to its egg. Albatross chicks are born knowing their parents' voices, because the parents sing to them the whole time they're in the egg.
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| Another beautiful sunrise on Tern. Photo by FWS Volunteer Patricia Jackson |
I would call these people something far worse. Seriously, who would do that? I could see fishing line maybe being an accident, but zipties are zipties...
ReplyDeleteJust found your island on Google Earth. Amazing! Maybe one day I'll fly in there if can find a legitimate reason to. As for the zip ties - too dumb to be malicious. I suppose that's better than pure malice but I find it hard to define exactly how.
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