'World's Oldest-Known' Wild Bird Just Reached a Huge Milestone & People Are Here for It

The Laysan albatross is a gull-like albatross that makes its home in the North Pacific, particularly the Hawaiian islands. Despite having a six-foot wingspan, its actually on the smaller side for an albatross, and is famous for being the species that boasts the world’s oldest known wild bird, Wisdom, who has been tracked in the ocean and on Hawaiian atolls since the mid 1950s. Though well into her seventies, Wisdom is still going strong, and has just laid was researchers think is her sixtieth egg.

Recently, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reported that Wisdom and her mate, Akeakamai, had returned to the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific, where they made a nest and she laid her first egg in over four years. Wisdom has raised at least thirty chicks since she’s been tracked in 1956, and officials claim that they have every reason to believe that this latest egg will also hatch. They have been using this location to raise their new babies since 2006.

Related: Moment Rescue Hen Lays Her First Egg After Months of Recovery Is So Emotional

What a legacy for this beautiful bird!

All About the Laysan Albatross

Though Wisdom is at least seventy-four, typically Laysan Albatross birds live about sixty-eight years, so she’s on the older side for the species.

These birds will sit on their egg in turns for two months, then spend another five or six months caring for their chick. After six months, the baby bird is ready to fly. Like all albatross, this species spends most of its life airborne and at sea, living mainly on squid and fish eggs.

Although they leave the nest after a few months, an albatross generally does not mate for the first five or more years of its life. When it does return to the colony for breeding season, it will choose a partner for life that it breeds with year after year, although it may skip some years, as Wisdom has.

Long-Lived Birds

Unlike mammals, which show their age via aching joints and gray hair, birds are much harder to tell their age once they have shed their juvenile plummage and become full-fledged adults. And while most songbirds don’t live more than a few years, some birds are known for surviving decades and even centuries.

This flies in the face of what we understand about mammalian aging, where animals with faster metabolisms such as shrews and voles live far shorter lifespans than others.

Many birds in captivity have been recorded as living nearly a hundred years, and this is why getting a bird as a pet is a serious investment. Responsible bird parents know that it’s actually reasonable to seek to provide for your animals in your will, as birds often long outlive the humans who have promised to care for them. When a family friend of mine died, leaving behind his ornery parrot, his widow did not know what to do as that bird liked no one but her late husband. Eventually, she was forced to search for a rescue that would give the bird the life he deserved.

Taking care of our pets is a big responsibility, and so is understanding their lifespans.

Obviously, this albatross can take care of herself, but it’s important to think about before you get a pet bird.

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