Saving the albatross: fashioning an environmental regime.

Currently, within the family Diomedeidae, albatrosses are the most threatened birds on the planet. The international nongovernmental organization (NGO) BirdLife officially lists four of the twenty-two species--whose numbers taxonomists continue to debate--as critically endangered with extinction, a further six as endangered, eight more as vulnerable, and the remainder as near threatened (BLI 2008). Exploitation for human food, loss of habitat, and environmental change due to invasive plants and animals on nest islands have caused declines, especially when human hunters killed off marine animals, notably in the Southern Hemisphere, beginning about 150 years ago. However, after sporadic recovery during the mid 1900s, scientists noted that many populations of these seabirds had begun to decline. This downturn has accelerated since 1980, reportedly due to the incidental loss of birds that forage around industrial fishing fleets on the high seas. Experts ascribe the albatrosses' current dubious status mostly to longline fishing (Robertson and Gales 1998). In this article I discuss the efforts that individual scientists, government officials, regional authorities, and both domestic and international NGOS are making to recognize the need for conserving albatrosses. They are coordinatingi efforts for developing a network of multinational and international agreements that, they hope, will save species from extinction. THE ALBATROSS The albatross is a large, awe-inspiring seabird, with the largest specimens spreading their wings as much as 11.5 feet. These marine birds swim well, scavenging fish and squid from the surface (Figure 1). They also seek food from the air, hovering above hunting whales and seals; and, like terrestrial vultures, they take the carcasses of these marine mammals as well as ship wastes and offal. Albatrosses hunt visually and, unusual among birds, rely on a well-developed sense of smell to hone in on food. They cover long distances while foraging and pass the greater part of their lives at sea (Tickell 2000). The albatross can lock its wings to glide and soar with minimum of effort, rising and falling on updrafts caused by the motions of waves and wind (Figure 2). Its mobility and grace have captured the imagination of sailors, poets, and environmentalists from the time of early global voyages. The best-known literary reference is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Gardner 1965). After remaining at sea for three to seven or eight years depending on the species, individuals begin to return to their natal islands and pass several seasons visiting nest colonies, associating with other birds, courting, and finally selecting a mate. Depending on the species, albatrosses begin to breed when they are five to twelve years old. Each adult takes a turn incubating the large white egg and then flying, sometimes for thousands of miles to feed itself and gather food to regurgitate to its single chick, which takes six to nine months to grow large and coordinated enough to launch itself independently from its natal headland or hillside. Albatrosses are long-lived, usually surviving for forty or more years. Adults breed annually or biannually but may not visit the nest colony for several years. They are "K-selected" species; that is, they are long-lived, are slow to mature, and raise their young only one at a time. K-selected populations are vulnerable to human activities, such as fishing, that shorten their life spans by entangling, wounding, and/or drowning them. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] THE DISTRIBUTION OF ALBATROSS SPECIES The higher latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere are the foraging grounds for seventeen of the twenty-two albatross species. Three additional species range widely in the north-central Pacific Ocean and breed on atolls under U.S. jurisdiction; and a single species, the waved albatross, breeds closest to the equator, almost exclusively on the Galapagos Islands. …