In the continuing effort to safely operate a military airfield in the midst of an albatross nesting colony, no one ever wins. That is, until this year on Kauai, when a group of partners as committed to saving the birds as to ensuring aircraft and aviator safety found a new way to approach the problem.

The U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility (PRMF), located on the southwestern coast of Kauai, operates an active airfield but also is home to a nesting population of Laysan albatross as well as other native plants and animals. With wingspans of approximately 80 inches, these large seabirds can create a significant hazard to aircraft sharing the skies over the airfield.

Since 1988, PMRF has been attempting to transplant adult albatrosses to other locations on Kauai to reduce potential flight hazards to pilots. The program had limited success, since albatrosses typically return to the same site where they were born to raise their own chicks every year. Although they don?t begin mating until they are approximately 7 years old, albatrosses are long-lived birds, and some are known to be more than 50 years of age.

Funding shortfalls led to delays in dealing with the albatrosses this nesting season, and PMRF was faced with a crisis when the albatrosses not only had already returned, but also laid eggs. With the eggs on the verge of hatching, PMRF staff worked with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the staff of the Kauai National Wildlife Refuge Complex to find an alternative solution rather than destroying the eggs.

The northern shore of Kauai, including Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, is also home to a growing Laysan albatross population, the largest population on the main Hawaiian Islands. As in any nesting bird population, some of the eggs laid every year are infertile, spoiled, or accidentally crushed. Since the parent birds return to a specific nest rather than a specific egg, the partners decided to attempt to relocate viable PMRF eggs to Kilauea Point and surrounding north shore nest sites to replace eggs that would never hatch.

?It was a race against time,? Refuge biologist Brenda Zaun says. ?While my colleagues from USDA were gathering eggs from PMRF, I would go out and candle the eggs here to determine which ones were inviable.? The USDA biologists brought 28 eggs or newly hatched chicks to Brenda.

?We were able to find foster parents for every one we brought in,? Brenda says. ?All I thought was that if I didn?t find a parent, this chick was going to die. That was just not acceptable.? Every one of the eggs and chicks was accepted by its new surrogate parents and will now be imprinted to return to Kauai's north shore rather than to PMRF when they are old enough to mate.

As for the adult Laysan albatrosses at PMRF, with no chicks to feed, most have returned to the open sea until the next breeding season. Next year, the partners will be ready for them. They are already working on plans for the future so they don?t have another crisis situation. Although the primary goal of the Navy and APHIS is aviation safety, they are also concerned about protecting the species.

?We want more birds here at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge and along the north shore,? says Brenda. ?They?re welcome, they?re safe, and they have a place to reproduce. This new program will help increase our population for years to come.?