Oldest breeding seabird

The oldest breeding sea bird – and indeed the oldest tagged bird in the wild overall – is a female Laysan albatross, or mōlī (Phoebastria immutabilis), named Wisdom, who is at least 74 years old as of 2024. She was first ringed in 1956 – conservatively aged then at five years old as she was fully grown and brooding an egg – at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean, and was observed there nesting again in late 2024. Incredibly, despite her advanced years, Wisdom is still producing offspring: on 3 December 2024, the US Fish & Wildlife Service announced that she had just laid another egg. She is estimated to have laid around 40 eggs and raised at least 30 chicks over her lifetime.

Laysan albatrosses spend much of their life on the wing out at sea, and normally live up to 40 years of age. They return to land to breed, on average every other year, around November.

The US ornithologist Chandler Robbins, who died in 2017 aged 98, first placed an aluminium band around Wisdom’s ankle in 1956. Forty-six years later, Robbins spotted Wisdom among thousands of birds near the same nesting area and attached a new band.

Albatrosses typically mate for life, but have been known to re-pair if a partner dies. The name of Wisdom's previous mate, Akeakamai, is a Hawaiian word that means "a love of wisdom". They had been together since 2006 and over the course of 15 years had returned to Midway Atoll almost every year to lay an egg and rear a chick. However, Akeakamai had not been seen for several years, and the egg laid in 2024 was the result of Wisdom pairing with a new male albatross.