© 2007 Caroline Huet...Science Art-Birds

Title: Waved albatross (Phoebastria irrorata)
Artist: Caroline Huet (for further information, click on the artist's name)
Image size: 40 x 50cm
Media: watercolor on Arches paper
Date: 2007
Collection of the artist

The artist noted that the Waved Albatross is a symbol of the Galapagos, where probably fewer than 3,000 pair breed on Española (Hood) Island, its only known breeding site. Española is part of the Galápagos National Park and Marine Reserve. A small number (10-to-20 pairs) might also breed on Isla de la Plata off Ecuador's Manabí province, but population data is sketchy. If researchers do find breeding pairs there, they will be at risk to nest-predation by rats and cats and to illegal collection of eggs and young.

In 2007, the IUCN uplisted this species to Critically Endangered not only because of its single confirmed island breeding population, but also because of losses as bycatches to industrial longline fisheries, human consumption, its hazardous habit of moving its eggs and its occasional mass egg desertions, and its susceptibility to events associated withi El Nino. To reduce risk, industrial longlining is prohibited in the Galápagos Marine Reserve, goats that compromised habitat quality were eradicated from Española Island, and tourism is rigorously controlled. Protection for the secondary site is insufficent.