Albatrosses are known to be long lived birds. Wisdom, a Laysan albatross was first banded in 1956 and was at least 5 years old at the time. in her 70 years, she has reared at least 40 chicks.
This species of albatross partner for live, but due to her extreme age she has outlived several of her partners. Until the turn of the century it was thought that these albatross only lived to be about 40, however Chandler Robbins of the USFWS noticed a bird with a ragged ring in 2002, and was astonished to find that he had tagged the bird back in 1956. Chandler sadly died in 2017, but the bird he tagged is still going strong. Albatrosses do not lay an egg each year, and so it is a slow growing population.
Due to the fact that these birds spend much or all of the rest of the year on the wing, covering huge distances, almost all we know of these birds is from the small portion of the year which they spend raising young, we have precious knowledge about their life the rest of the year. The problem with this, is it is very hard to successfully conserve a species you know little about
