 Most albatrosses range in the Southern Hemisphere from Antarctica to Australia, South Africa and South America. The exceptions to this are the four North Pacific albatrosses, of which three occur exclusively in the North Pacific, from Hawaii to Japan, California and Alaska; and one, the waved albatross, breeds in the Galápagos Islands and feeds off the coast of South America. The need for wind to enable gliding is the reason albatrosses are for the most part confined to higher latitudes: being unsuited to sustained flapping flight makes crossing the doldrums extremely difficult. The exception, the waved albatross, is able to live in the equatorial waters around the Galápagos Islands because of the cool waters of the Humboldt Current and the resulting winds.
