Endangered
Sooty Albatross
Phoebetria fusca
Sooty Albatross is a tubenose seabird in the family Diomedeidae (order Procellariiformes) — Phoebetria fusca, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
Plumage ranges from a sooty-brown to a sooty-black color depending on the individual, but the head and sometimes tail are typically darker than the rest of the body. Around almost the entire eye, excluding the inner corner, a white ring is present. On the lower jaw, a yellow to orange line is present on the beak, that is otherwise a uniform glossy black.
The sooty albatross is a medium-sized albatross, measuring about 85 cm (33 in) from head to tail, with a 2 m (6.6 ft) wingspan.
Published measurements include mass about 231.
Range and habitat
The sooty albatross can be found in the South Atlantic Ocean, the southern Indian Ocean, and the Southern Ocean between Australia and South America, although they have not been recorded in the South Pacific Ocean between Australia and South America. This albatross nests on islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean (Gough Island and the Tristan da Cunha group) and the southern Indian Ocean (Prince Edward Island, Marion Island, the Crozet Islands, Amsterdam Island, and the Kerguelen Islands). In general, the sooty albatross can be found foraging over deep ocean.
A single pair will mate every other year on a variety of islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean and the southern Indian Ocean islands. Natural forces include the predation of chicks by giant petrels and mice on islands, infectious diseases such as avian cholera, and the disturbance of breeding grounds by introduced animals and fires.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
The sooty albatross is a marine bird that spends more of its non-breeding life over the ocean. When breeding, it will return to land and continue to breed there for life.
This guide records Albatross behaviors, among them brief first encounters, prolonged encounters, and bonding behaviors that occur throughout several months when the Sooty Albatrosses are courting. The sooty albatross is a biennial breeder, meaning they breed every other year, with the exception of a mating pair unsuccessfully rearing a chick, in that case they will try again the following year.
In crisis
This bird is an endangered species and conservation efforts are taking place. The IUCN ranks the sooty albatross as an endangered species, with the most recent count of mature species being between 22,724 and 27,968 individuals and declining. Over the past three generations (about 90 years), there has been an overall decrease in population size of 60%, although the rate has been slowing down recently.
Threats to this population and conservation efforts are discussed below. Threats to this species are driven by both natural and anthropogenic effects.
Sooty Albatross is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Sooty Albatross, Wikidata item Q1265896. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
