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title: "Wisdom, the world’s oldest known Laysan Albatross, is a grandmother once again"
---

# Wisdom, the world’s oldest known Laysan Albatross, is a grandmother once again

![N333 Midway U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Volunteer Catie Mahon](https://acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Albatrosses/L/Laysan/N333_Midway_U.S._Fish_and_Wildlife_Service_Volunteer_Catie_Mahon.jpg)  
*Wisdom’s son, red N333, broods its second hatchling in February 2023**, photograph by Catie Mahon, USFWS*

 While searching on Sand Island, [Midway Atoll](https://acap.aq/news/news-archive/60-2013-news-archive/1434-acap-breeding-site-no-36-midway-atoll-black-footed-laysan-and-short-tailed-albatrosses-within-a-world-heritage-site) for the highly invasive [Golden Crownbeard](https://friendsofmidway.org/explore/wildlife-plants/plants/non-native-plants/) *Verbesina encelioide**s* U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service volunteers came upon an incubating [Laysan Albatross](http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/laysan-albatross-phoebastria-immutabilis) *Phoebastria immutabilis* with band number DH00.  A week later on 13 February the bird’s mate, banded red [N333](https://acap.aq/search14?q=N333), was on the nest containing a pipping egg, which had hatched by the next day.

 N333 is the first chick of Wisdom (red Z333), the world’s oldest known albatross, to be banded.  As a chick it had survived the [11 March 2011 tsunami](https://acap.aq/news/news-archive/24-2011-news-archive/941-tsunami-death-toll-for-laysan-and-black-footed-albatrosses-on-midway-atoll-increases-to-over-a-hundred-thousand-birds?highlight=WyJ0c3VuYW1pIiwidHN1bmFtaSdzIiwyMDExXQ==) that inundated most of Midway’s Eastern Island, as well as parts of Sand Island.  The bird, thought to be a male, was regularly sighted near Wisdom’s nest site over 2018-2021, but is now breeding some distance away. The current chick is N333’s second.  Wisdom’s [first known grand-chick](https://acap.aq/latest-news/4311-wisdom-s-grandchild-gets-a-meal-watch-the-video?highlight=WyJuMzMzIl0=) was found dead in May 2022 in the previous breeding season at around four months of age.

 Access previous posts to *ACAP Latest News* on Wisdom [here](https://acap.aq/search14?q=Wisdom).

 Information from USFWS volunteer Catie Mahon ([click here](https://friendsofmidway.org/wisdoms-lineage-prevails/?fbclid=IwAR1P8Yzo2fEZZZsbBgQT2tC9Mp6-4EkBRzeSTPjE4sC4k3Sw2IvJfcCdT-k)) and the [Friends of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofMidwayNWR).

 *John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses* *and Petrels, 08 March 2023*