DANCING TO AN ANCIENT BEAT - For four million years, albatrosses have returned to Midway Atoll every November to perform their mating rituals

National Wildlife, Oct-Nov, 2000 by Tim Friend

AT FIVE A.M., Midway Atoll is quiet, cold and damp with the start of the winter rainy season. The wind blows harshly across the dark lagoon, lashing mist and sea salt against the land, 1,200 miles northwest of the island of Hawaii.

The atoll's three tiny islands have been eerily devoid of their roughly one million Laysan and black-footed albatross residents since early August, when the last of the seabirds took off at the end of their eight-month breeding season. For the past four months, the mature adults and the new generation of juveniles have been journeying without touching land throughout the northern Pacific. Resting in groups on the ocean surface and gorging themselves on squid and flying fish, they have grown fat and ready for another season.

By 6:15, the first morning light shows on the horizon, and bird calls break the silence as the migrants start arriving at this remote region of the Hawaiian archipelago. In the air, they are the epitomy of grace. But as they alight, the birds tumble and roll in the signature landings that earned them the nickname "gooney birds." One after another, they shake themselves off and begin searching the ground for the tiny piece of nesting real estate that is home base. The albatrosses' annual November invasion of Midway has begun.

For the past century, humans have battled wildlife for space in an attempt to transform 2,000-acre Midway from a sandy spit of scrubby vegetation into a strategic outpost suitable for their own occupation. In 1905, Midway was settled as a way station for laying telegraph cable across the Pacific. Ironwood trees were imported. Lawns were sown. In the 1930s, the site became a respite for travelers on Pan American's Trans-Pacific Flying Clipper Seaplane. A hotel and piers for cargo ships were built.

By 1940, Midway had evolved into a strategic U.S. naval base. Aircraft runways were paved on the two largest islands, Sand and Eastern. The ground was dug up for underground fuel storage tanks, and one end of Sand Island became a dump for hazardous chemicals. Collisions between albatrosses and military aircraft brought about the U.S. Navy's "bird abatement program," which destroyed more than 54,000 adult albatrosses between 1954 and 1964.

Then, six years ago, after a half century of habitat alteration, the Navy pulled out. The federal government spent $90 million tearing down most of the old buildings, cleaning up the leaking fuel tanks and removing contaminated soil. Midway was named a national wildlife refuge. Military uniforms were replaced with those of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the human population was reduced from thousands at its peak in the 1960s to 150 residents today. The result has been good news for a range of wildlife, including 90 species of migrant birds (the Laysan albatrosses alone comprise the world's largest breeding colony of the species), green sea turtles and endangered Hawaiian monk seals.

Except for an unexplained decline among both Laysan and black-footed albatrosses on Midway over the past four years, the overall trend in the species' populations is inching skyward. One theory suggests that a growing appetite among humans for squid taken from the North Pacific could be depleting the main food source for the Laysan species. But scientists are waiting to see how many albatrosses return this year before sounding any alarms.

"At first we thought the decline might have been due to El Ni-o, which could have affected food sources for a lot of different species," says ornithologist Peter Pyle of the nonprofit Oceanic Society in San Francisco, which studies the albatross and operates conservation programs with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "But we will have to wait and see what happens this year," he adds. "Meanwhile, everything is looking pretty positive."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been working over the past six years to restore habitat and continue studies of albatross behavior and other wildlife begun in the 1960s. Ironwood trees, which served as terrific windbreaks for humans, deprive albatross chicks of breezes needed to regulate their body temperatures. The trees have been eliminated from Eastern Island. Invasive plants called Verbesina produce beautiful golden crowns but elevate humidity and create sweltering conditions for the ground-dwelling birds. Guests are invited to uproot the plants at every opportunity. Native naupaka shrubs, which provide the best habitat for albatrosses as well as red-tailed tropicbirds, are being restored.

"Since the Navy left, the tide seems to be turning back in favor of the albatross," says former refuge manager Rob Shallenberger. "You can truly see the resiliency of nature at work." And once again this year they are renewing the cycle of life-courting, mating, nesting, hatching and fledging-that has repeated itself on the isolated atoll for at least three million years.

Male albatrosses return to Midway before females to claim and defend their territories. The birds normally nest within three feet of the spot they occupied the year before. They will continue returning to the same nesting site for life. Interlopers are warned with a sharp clap of the bill not to enter a defender's space. Fights sometimes break out with males biting each other and engaging in tugs-of-war. Their angry vocalizations need no interpretation.