Dr. Jonathan Plissner Presents:

Albatross Studies and Other Seabirds at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge

Midway Atoll is located on the far northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, 1300 miles northwest of Honolulu. The remoteness of Midway Atoll NWR makes it a wonderful sanctuary for millions of seabirds, shorebirds, and other marine wildlife. Jonathan Plissner will give a brief overview of Midway’s various seabird species and then focus on the studies of Albatross that have been conducted there since 1936 and particularly on the long term population monitoring of Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses that continues to the present day. He will also talk about the history and current status of the Short-tailed Albatrosses and share an update on Wisdom, the 74+ year old Laysan Albatross.

Jonathan Plissner is a Supervisory Wildlife Biologist with US Fish & Wildlife at Midway Atoll NWR. He became a budding ornithologist at age 7 during a West Coast family trip when he became fascinated by a Steller’s jay in Muir Woods, which led to getting his first field guide.

He received his undergraduate degree at Cornell, and went on to earn a PhD at Clemson University, studying dispersal patterns in eastern bluebirds. He then made his way to the West Coast, spending several years working on various shorebird projects at Oregon State University. He has been conducting and managing ecological studies throughout the U.S. for 35+ years, focusing primarily on avian issues relating to bird movements. His ornithological interests and expertise include threatened and endangered species issues, avian interactions with renewable and nonrenewable energy developments and transmission, radar ornithology, behavioral ecology, migration and dispersal, collision risk, and general seabird and shorebird ecology. Since 2017, he has resided and held multiple positions at Midway Atoll. Currently, he supervises all biological programs at Midway, which is part of the National Wildlife Refuge system.

Zoom Meeting here: