{"id":2188663,"date":"2025-10-05T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2188663"},"modified":"2025-10-05T12:03:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T10:03:38","slug":"solitary-yes-shy-hardly-albatrosses-trail-after-trawlers-and-dance-for-their-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/solitary-yes-shy-hardly-albatrosses-trail-after-trawlers-and-dance-for-their-partners\/","title":{"rendered":"Solitary, yes. Shy? Hardly, albatrosses trail after trawlers and dance for their partners"},"content":{"rendered":"
In March, as Cyclone Alfred roared towards the south-east Queensland coast, the bayside suburbs of Brisbane were treated to a rare cold-water visitor. A shy albatross was spotted offshore, opposite a fishmonger in Sandgate. A couple of days later, what was likely to be the same bird flopped into a front yard of nearby Banyo, exhausted.<\/p>\n
The bird was taken into care by seabird rescuers Paula and Bridgette Powers, better known as the Twinnies. \u201cBanyo Alfred\u201d, as they named their bird, was exhausted, emaciated and riddled with lice, as were hundreds of other birds the twins treated in the cyclone\u2019s wake. Two months later, Alfie was well enough to be released back out to sea.<\/p>\n
Which, on the face of it, sounds like a good news story. But let\u2019s come back to it.<\/p>\nTwins Paula and Bridgette Powers with a black-winged petrel, which they rescued among dozens of other seabirds after Cyclone Alfred. Photograph: Andrew Stafford\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The shy albatross, Thalassarche cauta, is the only one of the world\u2019s 22 albatross species to breed in Australia: on the fittingly named Albatross Island, off north-west Tasmania, and Pedra Branca and Mewstone, two stacks off the island\u2019s south coast. All three spots are remote; the last two are impossible to access.<\/p>\n
It is a majestic bird, with a wingspan of more than 2.5 metres. It is not at all shy, despite its name. It was once thought to avoid boats \u2013 but I have spent a lot of time at sea* and have never seen a shy albatross knock back a free feed. Thalassarche, the scientific name for the genus to which it belongs, is much better. It is derived from the Greek and translates as \u201csea commander\u201d.<\/p>\n
If you live in southern Australia (anywhere from Sydney to South Australia, including Tasmania) it\u2019s not that hard to see a sea commander. Just wait for a good southerly blow in the middle of winter, rug up, pick a spot on any decent headland in the teeth of the gale, and you\u2019ve every chance of seeing one wheel by on the wind.<\/p>\n
For most of us, though, albatrosses are more like myths. They usually live far offshore, familiar only to the crews of fishing trawlers. They are harbingers of both good and ill-fortune. To harm an albatross is a grave sin in seafaring lore, as depicted in Samuel Taylor Coleridge\u2019s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, who is cursed after shooting an albatross with a crossbow:<\/p>\n
And a good south wind still blew behind, \nBut no sweet bird did follow, \nNor any day, for food or play, \nCame to the mariner\u2019s hollo!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And yet, of the 22 species of albatross, 15 are considered threatened.<\/p>\n
Things went particularly badly for the shy albatross after the arrival of Europeans in Australia: after the discovery of Albatross Island in the late 1700s, an estimated population of 20,000 pairs was reduced to just a few hundred nests by the early 20th century, due to egg collecting and feather harvesting.<\/p>\n
Those practices have long since been banned and numbers have recovered to about 30,000 mature individuals. But it\u2019s still considered near-threatened, due to three related issues that affect all the world\u2019s albatrosses, and many other seabirds: longline fishing, global heating and their protracted breeding biology.<\/p>\n
Albatrosses naturally live long, mostly solitary lives. After leaving the nest, they remain at sea for at least three years, not maturing sexually until they are around seven. Dr Yuna Kim, BirdLife Australia\u2019s seabird project coordinator, tells me that finding a partner is hard work: \u201cThey have to be really good dancers!\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s very cute, but such an effort for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes \u2013 juvenile shy albatrosses spend several summers learning to dance, a synchronised pattern of bowing, bill clattering and other smooth moves. The ritual is thought to strengthen pair bonding: when pairs reunite after the long winter, they continue to dance for each other before settling down to breed: just one chick, annually.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s sufficient for population recruitment for a species that can live for up to 60 years. But many don\u2019t get to dance at all: the main challenge for shy albatross, Kim says, is \u201cbasically surviving until they can breed\u201d. Many juveniles head west, to the southern Indian Ocean and the waters around South Africa, where they are often snared as bycatch in longline fishing operations.<\/p>\nLongline fishing involves deploying thousands of baited hooks spaced along a line behind the boat. The incidental mortality of seabirds in longline fisheries is a serious conservation issue. Photograph: Ed Melvin\/Washington Sea Grant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
It\u2019s a brutal way to die. Birds dive on the bait, only to be hooked like fish, dragged through the water and drowned. The situation is slowly improving, due to three countermeasures: setting the lines at night (when albatrosses don\u2019t forage), weighting the hooks so the lines sink faster, and tori lines, which use coloured streamers to create a visual barrier for the birds.<\/p>\n
But global heating is the longer-term threat and that\u2019s where we return to the story of Banyo Alfred \u2013 the exhausted albatross lucky enough to be picked up by the Twinnies.<\/p>\n
Shy albatross are dutiful co-parents. While one partner forages at sea, the other guards the egg and chick, existing only on its fat reserves. Eggs are laid in September and hatch in December, with chicks leaving the nest in April. If one bird doesn\u2019t come home, breeding is abandoned.<\/p>\n
Which makes me wonder: assuming Alfie, an adult, was partnered (and a male), what happened to his mate and chick while he was in rehab? Famously monogamous, albatross divorce is on the rise, due to stress caused by warming waters, scarcer food supplies and more frequent storms.<\/p>\n
I hate to think what kind of bad luck that would cause, so I\u2019m throwing my support behind the shy albatross in the Guardian\/Birdlife Australia 2025 bird of the year poll. Next winter, I urge you to head for your nearest headland, cast your eyes out to sea and remember the more hopeful words of Coleridge:<\/p>\n
And a good south wind sprung up behind, \nThe albatross did follow, \nAnd every day, for food or play, \nCame to the mariner\u2019s hollo!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n