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| World Wildlife |
The wandering albatross with its nearly 12 foot wingspan, the largest of any living bird, is now dangerously close to extinction, possibly within the next few decades.
Like the petrels and sheerwaters, they spend most of their lives miles from shore and can travel up to 1,600 miles in 24 hours, staying with a particular boat for weeks at a time. Indeed these sleek fliers have followed ships for as long as man has sailed the oceans.
Now, their ability to spot a ship in hundreds of miles of ocean is threatening all 21 species of albatross with extinction. The boats that attract the albatross are deep sea fishing boats, many of which are fishing illegally for endangered species such as bluefin tuna, Patagonian toothfish and swordfish and they lay lines 80 100 miles long. The lines are baited with frozen squid which remains buoyant until it thaws. The albatross swoops down to the bait, swallows it and, as the line sinks, the bird goes under with it. It is estimated that 100,000 albatross are killed in this way every year.
Albatross used to live for 60 - 80 years: now their lifespan has dropped alarmingly to about 80 weeks.
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote that Œthe death of one albatross costs an entire crew their lives' so it's not the live albatross that sailors should worry about - it's the dead ones!
Dave Ansell
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