Gene Kridler to Roger Clapp 
Tape 
The number of young fledglings may at times be considerably less than the number of 
nests with eggs. Not jLs usually considerably less. This isn’t always the case. They 
of course naturally are less than the number of nests with pggs, there’s always the 
loss there but not always considerably less or,this is not always the usual case either. 
This certainly doesn’t seem to be the case there at Pearl and Hermes. Certainly with 
this species it doesn’t seem to be the case as with the Laysan Albatross. 
Getting on down to. the last sentence in that paragraph. Where you state t? in any 
case it seems likely that current breeding populations are considerably smaller than 
indicated by Rice and Kenyon I’d scratch that out entirely and say that Albatross 
from 
nesting population on Midway fluctuate/year to year and there is no reason to believe 
that those on Necker would not vary also. And as explanation since it is impossible 
to separate breeding adults from nonbreeders on the island at this late date, this 
would be the most minimal figure. This is getting on down to populations. In the 
final paragraph under populations, it is clear however that the 1966-67 populations 
were either considerably smaller or considerably less successful than in March 1964-65 
population I have added March 1964-65 or March 1969 population. Add the sentence 
A 
"during the latter the entire island was head counted for Albatross and a total of 
175 chicks of this species was tallied. A few may have been missed but certainly 
no more than 10 or 15.” Then my explanation that since it is impossible to separate 
breeding adults from nonbreeders on the islands at this date, this would be a multi- 
minimal figure. Were one to estimate 25$> more for nonbreeders like Kenyon and Rice 
did in December, populations would be close to 600 or more. Now in this regard, 
talking to Harvey Fisher and others, I would assume that as the season progresses 
you’re going to get a higher and higher percentage of nonbreeders mingling in there 
to sea 
with the breeding birds and many of the breeding birds will be off/hunting food for 
the chicks. Consequently a considerable proportion of the Albatross present on the 
island would be nonbreeding birds, so this 25 $> figure then would probably be a low one 
and it could very well be that you may have as many nonbreeders there as breeders. 
