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title: "65 Laysan Albatross chicks fledge from the Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Reserve in 2025 despite attacks by the (now eradicated) feral pigs"
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# 65 Laysan Albatross chicks fledge from the Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Reserve in 2025 despite attacks by the (now eradicated) feral pigs

 ![2025 season](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Albatrosses/L/Laysan/2025_season.jpg)*Breeding Laysan Albatrosses at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Reserve and USFWS volunteer Louise Barnfield completing a weekly survey.  Photographs from Louise Barnfield*

 Results of the 2024/25 breeding season of Laysan Albatrosses or Mōlī *Phoebastria immutabilis* within the [Kilauea Point National Wildlife Reserve](https://www.fws.gov/refuge/kilauea-point) on the Hawaiian island of Kauai are now in.  Out of 154 occupied nests within the reserve, 122 chicks were counted, giving a hatching success of 79.2%.  Predation by feral pigs early in the breeding season reduced fledging success to 53.3% and overall breeding success to 42.2%.

 The remaining population of feral pigs had been [removed](https://www.acap.aq/latest-news/laysan-albatrosses-in-hawaiis-kilauea-point-national-wildlife-refuge-are-no-longer-threatened-by-feral-pigs?highlight=WyJmZXJhbCIsInBpZ3MiLCJwaWciXQ==) from with the [predator exclusion fence](https://www.fws.gov/story/2023-08/pacifics-largest-predator-exclusion-fence) by May 2025, so it seems likely that the 2025/26 breeding season will show improved figures over the season just past.

 There was a [record number](https://www.acap.aq/latest-news/safe-from-sea-level-rise-and-predators-laysan-albatrosses-on-kaui-and-oahu-lay-record-egg-numbers?highlight=WyJmZXJhbCIsInBpZ3MiLCJwaWciXQ==) of 157 pairs of Laysan Albatrosses breeding within the reserve in the 2023/24 season – 20 more than in the previous season.  In the 2022/23 season pigs gained entry and destroyed nearly 70 albatross nests, prior to completion of the fence ([click here](https://www.safinacenter.org/blog/gtl7614jvspegedz7rel9ggoc5lvx5)).

 Percentages calculated from information in the [August 2025 issue](https://mailchi.mp/kilaueapoint/aug-2025-wild-times?fbclid=IwY2xjawMgB-tleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFrZ3c0MDQ4T1c2NUlnTGlUAR56rFWo7YkIiri1nA3Ko7B9hDXo4ScK-zQr5tNpVeIedsSDuVA-qZYojPWAYA_aem_S2LcgfZXIypHukdl9DJ0OA) of the [Friends of Kauai Wildlife Refuges](https://www.facebook.com/FKWRKauai?__cft__%5b0%5d=AZV9cYYxn6qaGz0fU0pk_cxNzPdtAPRyLOZalh55xr72n2bI6jjc2ykxyGXwpzsKJQynnZpdZjtY37iiU0t5MrB-XsBVxvR5lyYHyfKXizx82w_xsyaPSA3ZG1wd0lMraoLmtTloBSoiyHkXD6M3635uUPRpLNC8579dt7fhqqoJSAQma--4MCa71ycHtzS4ioU&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R)’ online newsletter “*Wild Times*”.

 *John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 04 September 2025*