Tsunami spares old albatross

Shared via the Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation group:

"Thousands of seabirds were killed at Midway when the tsunami generated by the March 11 Japanese offshore quake struck the U.S. Pacific atoll, northwest of Hawaii.

Among the fatalities drowned or buried under debris were at least 1,000 adult and adolescent Laysan albatrosses.

But Wisdom, the 60-year-old Laysan mother highlighted in Earthweek last week as the oldest known wild bird in the United States, survived.

Wildlife biologist John Klavitter of the Fish and Wildlife Service tells Earthweek that Wisdom and her mate were aloft when the wave struck, and almost certainly were unaffected.

Their nest and chick were also spared from the waves, up to 5 feet high, due to their location on one of the higher elevations of Midway’s Sand Island."

http://www.earthwee k.com/2011/ ew110318/ ew110318a. html