Wisdom comes with age. Wisdom is also a Laysan albatross and the oldest banded bird in the world. She is at least 69 years old.

First banded in December 1956, Wisdom lives in the world’s largest albatross colony at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, managed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. She was banded as part of a study tracking albatross population and life cycle. She’s been banded five more times since then.

Just under a decade after her first banding, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, part of the 14th Amendment, was signed. The Civil Rights Act ended the segregation of Black people in public places. The end of segregation has occurred within a bird’s lifetime.

The Civil Rights Act also banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, which helped improve diversity in science. However, Black people are still underrepresented, especially in fields like conservation biology, ecology and evolution. In ecology, Black scientists are outnumbered 100 to one. There should be at least 15 times more Black scientists in order to be representative.

The Civil Rights Act was one step towards diversifying the scientists, which is important for bringing new perspective and approaches to science, in addition to supporting equity.

For albatross, a bird’s lifetime may be two to three times longer than a researcher’s career. Luckily, the same biologist who first banded her, Chandler Robbins, sighted her again 46 years later!

Wisdom has mothered over 30 chicks during her long life, and was confirmed to have another chick as recently as last year. To put that in perspective, albatross were previously thought to live up to 30 or 40 years in the wild. Albatross lay only one egg per year and do not lay eggs every year. On top of that, albatross must pair bond and spend a few years together before they start to have eggs. Partnerships can endure over a decade.

Wisdom gives us hope on many levels. Albatross were killed for their feathers, used for decoration on hats in Europe in the early 1900s. Their population has since recovered but face other threats, like invasive animals and ocean pollution.

Wisdom has survived more than a half century of challenges and brought life to new albatross who may outlive some of us. She has flown at least three million miles. Wisdom reminds us to persist, not only in our fight for wildlife, but also in our fight to have scientists that reflect our society as a whole.