Short-tailed Albatross
In the middle of the last century, things weren’t looking good for the majestic Short-tailed Albatross. From a hardy population estimated to be in the millions just decades earlier, the bird’s numbers underwent a dramatic decline from over-hunting — nearly disappearing from the face of the Earth entirely by the late 1940s. But, while many conservationists believed them to have been made extinct, the few remaining Albatross were plotting their eventual comeback — and now, for the first time, they’ve been spotted nesting on U.S. soil.
