Satellites tracking the mysterious seabirds

STONE MOUNTAIN, Georgia (CNN) -- The mysterious giant seabird, the albatross, has been difficult to study because members of the species spend most of their time far out at sea, soaring and gliding on updrafts.

Now a program that puts light-weight satellite transmitters on the birds, has collected fascinating information on the albatross -- along with distressing evidence of their decline.

CNN's Bruce Burkhardt reporting on tracking albatrosses 2 min, 18 sec. VXtreme video
Tracking Albatrosses
	2.6 M / 49 sec. / 240x180 1.7 M / 49 sec. / 160x120 QuickTime movie

Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, runs the tracking program, called Project Albatross, and shares information with school children at Hambrick Elementary School in Stone Mountain.

Over the last two years, project leaders have found roughly ten percent of the birds they follow don't come back. Albatrosses get trapped in drift nets and snagged on fishing lines far out in the Pacific, the scientists say. And they believe the birds also are choking on garbage, which drifts to even the most isolated places.

The mating dance

In the school-based portion of the study, children have been following 29 birds from Tern Island off Hawaii on their long distance journeys. One bird flew to Alaska's Aleutian Islands and back four times, a great distance, even for a bird with a ten-foot wing span.

Researchers have also captured on video a less breathtaking, more amusing, aspect of albatross life -- the mating dance.

On shore the male and female birds face each other, hop excitedly, and bob their heads quickly up and down. Both animals in unison then point their beaks up at the sky and hold still, stretching their long white necks straight. After a pause, the hopping and bobbing begin in the albatross mating dance.