White-capped Albatross, often considered to be a subspecies of Shy Albatross, breeds only on 3 islands in the Auckland Islands and one island in the Antipodes.
Albatrosses have a bi-annual breeding strategy. It takes about 9 months to rear their single chick, then they take a year off before attempting to breed again. This makes estimating the population difficult since only half of the adult population is present at the breeding colonies in any one year. In the case of the Northern Royal, the annual breeding population is estimated at about 5200 pairs with the total population being estimated to be around 28000-34000 individuals during the 1990's.
Long-line fishing is the greatest threat to this species, although it is encouraging that recent studies have shown the numbers being killed by New Zealand registered boats has declined significantly compared to 10 years ago.
Albatrosses are completely at home in gale force winds as shown by the bird below which nonchalantly soared past the cliffs of Acker's Point calmly preening its breast.
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