CSI ALBATROSS
Located at the front of the main gallery
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Albatrosses are the world's largest sea birds with some species having wing spans of over 11 feet. The Laysan Albatross, shown here, have an average wing span of 6 1/2 feet. Albatrosses fly hundreds of thousands of miles in their lifetimes and have been documented to live over 60 years.
Photographer: David Liittschwager
CSI outline of baby Albo
CSI exhibit
CSI exhibit
Six Foot Albatross sculpture made of plastic cutlery, by David Cushing
The photos and albatross artifacts in this exhibit are provided by, nature photographer, David Liittschwager. Visitors to this interactive exhibition will experience an array of photography and artifacts while investigating who killed our baby Albatross, "Albo."
David Liittschwager
"Wild Chronicles - Archipelago Birds."
NatureServe. YouTube, 9 Sept 2014.
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David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton talk about their work in the northern Hawaiian atolls.
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5:37min
"Midway a Message from the Gyre a short film by Chris Jordan from Midway."
FARUK KARADUMAN. YouTube, 5 Jan 2015.
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On the remote Midway Island, tens of thousands of baby albatrosses lie dead with bodies filled with plastic.
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3:53min
"Dancing Laysan Albatrosses"
Whalegeek. YouTube, 8 Jun 2010.
Male and female albatrosses engage in a coordinated "dancing" display. Once formed, bonds appear to be life-long.
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2:15min
"Egg Laid By World's Oldest Banded Wild Albatross."
GeoBeats News. YouTube, 18 Dec 2014.
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Wisdom, a Laysan Albatross estimated to be 63 years old, has returned to Midway to nest.
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1:10min
"MIDWAY JOURNEY II - Junk Food."
Midway Journey. YouTube, 5 Jul 2010.
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Brace yourself for this short video of the horrifying contents of the stomach of a dead baby albatross.
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3:32min
David Liittschwager is a freelance photographer with an emphasis on natural history subjects, particularly portraiture of these subjects. He is a contributing photographer to numerous natural history and scientific magazines including NationalGeographic, Scientific American, and Audubon. His photograph of the Zika-transmitting mosquito appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on May 16, 2016.
His photographs have been exhibited in many museums, including the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, the Honolulu Academy of Art in Hawaii, and the California Academy ofSciences in San Francisco. He has lived in San Francisco for the past 21 years.
The photos and albatross artifacts in this exhibit were provided by David Liittschwager unless otherwise noted. Artifacts were collected in 2004 from Kure Atoll, Midway Atoll, and Laysan Island.
Some photos were published in his book, Archipelago: Portraits of Life in the World's Most Remote Island Sanctuary, with Susan Middleton. Others have not been previously published but are from his extensive private collection.
In the words of David Liittschwager:
“We were spending about two and a half months on Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands with a group of people monitoring monk seals, albatrosses, and other birds. We were using part of an abandoned old Loran station — more of a shed really — as a photographic studio. There was a nest just outside the door to the shed and in it was a young albatross that we started calling Shed Bird. He was our constant companion for several weeks,” remembers Liittschwager. “
These albatrosses were not afraid of people because they have no natural terrestrial predators. So we would step around Shed Bird as we came and went. Then one afternoon I noticed he had fallen down — probably dehydration, which is often an issue with these birds. I picked him up, put some water on him, and put him in the shade with a fan on him. He seemed to revive but, sadly, the next morning he was dead.
“The refuge manager did a necropsy to find out why Shed Bird had died. When we found out how much plastic he had ingested, we were completely shocked. The contents of Shed Bird’s proventriculus (a standard part of avian anatomy) weighed 340 grams; more than 80 percent of this was plastic. A regulation baseball weighs only about 140 grams. Shed Bird was weighed down by two baseball’s weight of plastic.”
The True Story of Shed Bird
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Albo's story is based on the true story of Shed Bird as told in Archipelago: Portraits of Life in the World’s Most Remote Island Sanctuary, by David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton, National Geographic Society, Washington, DC 2005.
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The now world-recognized photograph that David Liittschwager made of a single albatross chick that died after ingesting a huge amount of plastic is representative of other birds. But this bird was special.
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Photographer: David Liittschwager
Photographer: David Liittschwager
A Necropsy is performed to determine the contents of a dead chick's stomach. Nearly all albatrosses in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that have been necropsied have been found to have plastic in their digestive system.
Photographer: David Liittschwager
A Bolus is the undigested food that an albatross typically spits up. Adult albatrosses are able to regurgitate the harmful plastic, but chicks do not gain that reflex until they are 4 months old, which is often too late.
Photographer: Cynthia Vanderlip, Kure Wildlife Sanctuary Refuge Manager
Each breeding pair spends approximately seven months on land to lay, incubate, and rear their single hatchling. Both parents assume responsibility for feeding their young.
Photographer: David Liittschwager
Common foods eaten by Laysan Albatrosses are squid, fish, and fish eggs. Albatrosses often mistake lighters for squid and plastic debris for fish and fish eggs. The lighters in this photo were collected on Midway Atoll by one person on one afternoon walk.
Photographer: David Liittschwager
Even though Kure Atoll is extremely remote, its beaches are littered with trash. At least 100 pounds of plastic washes onto its beaches every week.
Photographer: Cynthia Vanderlip, Kure Wildlife Sanctuary Refuge Manager
Albatrosses usually mate for life.
Photographer: David Liittschwager
Albo, our crime victim, is a fictional Laysan Albatross chick.
Graphic Illustrator: Crystal McLaughlin
Albo lived on Kure Atoll, one of the northwestern atolls of the Hawaiian Islands. Kure Atoll is located approximately 2,000 miles from the nearest continent. Over 99 percent of the breeding population of albatrosses are found among the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.