World Albatross Day: The Life and Challenges of an Albatross

This story starts, as with all birds, with a bill tapping on eggshell. Tentative at first, then determined.  

After two days’ exertion, the chick emerges into the subantarctic air of South Georgia’s Bird Island. After eleven weeks of parental incubation, the world’s meagre population of Snowy Albatross has grown by one.  

She’s lucky to have hatched, but that is just the start. One study found that a seventh of chicks die before reaching independence – raising a Snowy Albatross chick to this stage takes longer than any other bird and is fraught with difficulty. 

We’ll call her Alberta; she snuggles beneath a parent in their nest, a boggy, tussocky hillside that characterises land at 54° South. Her parents, paired for 19 years, have already raised six offspring. Both are well-known to the South Georgian scientists who have ringed Bird Island’s entire breeding population, and every fledgling since 1972 so we can follow their lives and protect them.  

Both parents will protect her from foul weather and hungry skuas looking for an easy meal. While one parent keeps her safe and warm, the other will forage up to 300km from South Georgia to return with a digested soup of squid and fish.  

She will grow up to be one of the world’s largest flying birds but will battle with life-threatening experiences. Her survival is vital for her species, which we list as globally Vulnerable.    

But our data warns that Alberta risks wandering into troubled waters as she voyages into non-protected areas and risks being caught by fishing gear – a deadly and preventable issue that we call bycatch. 

Header image: Two Snowy Albatrosses © MZPHOTO.CZ/Shutterstock

Story by James Lowen.

The Seabird Tracking Database is the largest collection of seabird movement data in the world and all feeds into our Marine Programme, where the team works hard to improve the conservation status of global seabird populations. 

How do we know all this?  

We know where Snowy Albatrosses travel, and when, thanks to tracking devices that are attached to hatched or breeding birds on Bird Island. This data holds the stories of their lives and is compiled within our Seabird Tracking Database – a unique platform created in 2004 to aid hundreds of researchers and conservationists.  

It’s the largest collection of seabird movement data in the world and all feeds into our Marine Programme, where the team works hard to improve the conservation status of global seabird populations.  This evidence-based approach informs local-to-global actions, delivers grassroot conservation action and advocates for action from governments around the world via the BirdLife Partnership. 

Its beating heart is the Albatross Task Force (ATF), the world’s first international team training the fishing industry to avoid unintentional harm to seabirds. We assembled the ATF alongside our Partner, the RSPB, in 2005 – this international team of experts develop strategies and practical solutions to reduce bycatch and the killing of seabirds. 

How can you help? 

Today you can help albatrosses like Alberta! Any gift you make will be doubled thanks to a generous donor willing to match all gifts towards our Keeping Albatross Off the Hook appeal.

You can also take part in Global Birdfair – the world’s largest annual celebration of birds. The Global Birdfair 2025 Conservation Project, Safeguarding Ocean Species, will focus on tackling threats facing our magnificent seabirds in the southern Pacific by increasing the use of bycatch mitigation measures on longline fishing vessels. The project will reduce killing of species such as the Antipodean Albatross and create greater awareness of this problem on a global scale.     

The project will strengthen livelihoods, champion best practices and contribute to more resilient, healthy ocean ecosystems to ensure that our seabirds can soar free.