Science: Man v. Bird

Midway Island is the happy home of 645,000 albatrosses—about 35% of the world population of the Laysan species and 16% of the black-footed species. Difficulty is, Midway is also the home of a major air facility of the U.S. Navy, and the place is not big enough for both bird and plane. Last week the U.S. Navy decided that the troublesome albatross must go.

The great birds (wingspan: about 7 ft.) go through such distressingly gooney antics that Navymen long ago dubbed them gooney birds. Among other things, they need large, clear areas to take off and land, and they find airports ideal. The friendly gooney birds lay their big eggs on or near the runways, rise in clouds as if to welcome planes on landing or to see them off on takeoffs. Often they fly smack into an airborne craft. They have dived into propellers, smashed against expensive radomes, causing about $300,000 damage a year. Far worse is the ever-present danger that a Midway albatross may someday really clobber a $6,000,000 plane and cause a fatal crackup.

The Navy has tried to shoo the gooneys away. Sailormen have attempted to drive them out by burning old tires, scare them put by dropping flares on them and shooting off rifles, bazookas and mortars near them. When the gooneys stoically ignored it all, the Navy people called upon the scientists. The scientists tried filching the gooneys’ eggs. The birds wailed like banshees at the egg snatchers, then promptly laid some more. In desperation, the Navy packed some gooneys into planes, hauled them to far-off Guam, to Kwajalein, to northern Japan, even to Puget Sound—4,000 miles away. Unerringly, the gooneys, thoughtfully marked with a shocking-pink head dye for identincation, flew back to Midway. And the Navy learned that nothing smells up a plane more pungently than a load of airsick gooneys.

The Navy’s latest proposed stratagem is simple: a bash on the head for every gooney. But chances are this plan will never really get off the ground. First of all, it will take the Navy at least five years to purge the birds: young gooneys leave Midway shortly after birth to wander, return only at the age of five. Furthermore, back in the U.S., outraged conservationists have organized a concerted protest to Congress against the projected slaughter.

In an attempt to soothe man and bird alike, the Navy is creating an airport for albatrosses on the nearby, nonstrategic island of Kure, hopes to build up the small albatross population there (current count: 700). Fortnight ago Navy bulldozers cut a series of 50-ft. swaths through the brush to make special gooney runways. But last week, at the peak of their mating season, the gooneys again defied the U.S. Navy. As ornithologists had predicted, not one winged off to the new, man-made sanctuary.