HONOLULU (AP) - A bird conservation group says an endangered short-tailed albatross chick has hatched in the far northwestern edge of the Hawaiian islands for the second year in a row.
The American Bird Conservancy said Monday the same short-tailed albatross male and female who nested last year at Midway Atoll in
the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands returned this year.
Until last year, short-tailed albatross had recently only reproduced at two sites: Torishima in Japan and disputed islands controlled by Tokyo and claimed by Beijing, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
The bird was once the most abundant North Pacific albatross species, with a population of more than a million. Feather hunting decimated the species at the turn of the 20th century. By the 1940s, it was thought to be extinct.
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