The State : Rare Albatross Sighted

Bird watchers reported sighting the first great white albatross seen in California waters in nearly a century. Watchers reported seeing a bird with a seven-foot wingspan dive through a cloud of gulls off the Cordell Bank north of the Golden Gate. The albatross is legendary among marine navigators because the birds accompany ships in all kinds of weather. The short-tailed albatross was proclaimed extinct in the 1930s. It was thought to have been largely exterminated by Japanese feather collectors on its breeding island in the Bonins, east of Japan. Between 1899 and 1902, five million were killed. A few survived, although until last week they were absent from California waters, where once they were a common sight between breeding seasons.