Great news, in a nutshell: A couple weeks ago a Short-tailed Albatross egg hatched on Midway, a major step towards the recovery of what was once the most abundant albatross in the North Pacific. Yes I know this is not Antarctica, but a recovery milestone for Albatross easily justify the divergence. Before we humans wreaked our havoc, there were some 1,000,000 Short-tailed Albatross nesting on a handful of islands off Japan. These were eaten and ravaged for their feathers, totally wiped out and thought to be extinct after WWII until in the early 1950s 10 pairs were found breeding on the island of Torishima, an active volcano (read, dangerous!) in the Philippine Sea south of Japan. Fortunately for the survival of albatross species, some birds are always at sea for years, and were conveniently absent when the killing sprees took most individuals. From these 10 pairs, through long efforts the birds now have several small colonies, numbering an estimated 2364 birds. Great efforts have been ongoing for some years with decoys and recorded calls trying to get breeding pairs to settle on Midway, and after several years of hopeful signs we now have a live chick. It's a long road from there to a viable colony, but there's that old adage, about a single step and a journey of 1000 miles.
Endangered Bird Hatches on U.S. Soil for First Time in Recorded History
http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/stories/110124.html
An informative background on Short-tailed Albatross
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-tailed_Albatross
Albatross forever! (have I said that before?)
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