The
Wandering Albatross is the largest living flying bird.
Here, to give you some perspective concerning size, is the famous David Attenborough
seated next to an Albatross CHICK!!
An
adult male weighs about 25 pounds - that's the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.
It
has a wingspan of twelve feet. So an adult human could lie down under the
outstretched wing and be completely covered.
Individual
birds are also very long lived. The typical age for an albatross to reach is
about seventy or more years.
They
fly over distances of up to six hundred miles in one day.
When
the young albatross leaves the nest for the first time, it will spend at least
seven years flying out at sea before returning to land for the first time.
During that maiden flight, a typical albatross will cover something close to
one and a half million miles. In
its lifetime, an albatross will normally cover fifteen million miles - the
equivalent of flying to the moon and back eighteen times!
In
recent years, their numbers have been rapidly declining, putting them on the
Red List for conservation status. Their decline is due to over fishing the
oceans by humans.
Will
anything survive our greed?
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