65 Laysan Albatross chicks fledge from the Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Reserve in 2025 despite attacks by the (now eradicated) feral pigs

 Breeding Laysan Albatrosses at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Reserve and USFWS volunteer Louise Barnfield completing a weekly survey.  Photographs from Louise Barnfield

Results of the 2024/25 breeding season of Laysan Albatrosses or Mōlī Phoebastria immutabilis within the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Reserve on the Hawaiian island of Kauai are now in.  Out of 154 occupied nests within the reserve, 122 chicks were counted, giving a hatching success of 79.2%.  Predation by feral pigs early in the breeding season reduced fledging success to 53.3% and overall breeding success to 42.2%.

The remaining population of feral pigs had been removed from with the predator exclusion fence by May 2025, so it seems likely that the 2025/26 breeding season will show improved figures over the season just past.

There was a record number of 157 pairs of Laysan Albatrosses breeding within the reserve in the 2023/24 season – 20 more than in the previous season.  In the 2022/23 season pigs gained entry and destroyed nearly 70 albatross nests, prior to completion of the fence (click here).

Percentages calculated from information in the August 2025 issue of the Friends of Kauai Wildlife Refuges’ online newsletter “Wild Times”.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 04 September 2025