Albatross Count

 Our Internet speeds have been very slow so no pictures today. The count is going well with an energetic group of 17 people counting everyday. Today we woke to heavy rain and wind but we still worked until noon. We are a little ahead of schedule so we were able to take the afternoon off to get all of our things dried out. I can put on dry rain gear in the morning, so that will be good. These birds have many difficulties surviving in the world and add to that some deranged person is shooting what look like darts at the albatross. The best guess is that some bored fisherman in the North Pacific is taking shots at the albatross around their boat with a blow gun. Our group has found 2 Black-footed Albatross with embedded darts, one of which was removed, but the other bird they were unable to catch. If we see 2 that are alive and flying I wonder how many don't live. The Black-footed Albatross is much more rare that the Laysan and it's a shame to see this kind of thing happening.