Royal albatross chick \u0100wheo, which features on the 24-hour livestream Royal Cam, is among the first toroa to have left their nests at Pukekura\/Tairaoa Head this season.<\/p>\n
The seabirds are one of the biggest in the world, with wingspans of up to three metres, and the Otago colony is the only mainland site where toroa breed.<\/p>\n
Department of Conservation (DOC) biodiversity ranger Sharyn Broni said she hoped this year’s season would match last year’s record, with 38 royal albatross fledglings.<\/p>\n
“We’re at this exciting time of year when the chicks start to leave as all the hard work the rangers have done pays off. We’ve seen the chicks starting to practice in the strong winds, flapping and strengthening their wings getting ready for their long journeys,” she said.<\/p>\n
Once leaving their nests, the young birds learn to feed off the east coast of Aotearoa before crossing 9000 kilometres of Pacific Ocean to the Humbolt Current off the coast of Chile.<\/p>\n
The juveniles quickly adapt to life on the ocean where they will spend 85 percent of their lives.<\/p>\n
They do not return to land for around five years, when they go back to their breeding ground having circumnavigated the globe.<\/p>\n
DOC co-manages the albatross colony near \u014ctepoti\/Dunedin as part of Te Poari a Pukekura alongside Te R\u016bnanga o \u014ct\u0101kou, Korako Karetai Trust and Dunedin City Council, with the support of the Otago Peninsula Trust.<\/p>\n
Te Poari a Pukekura chair Bill Karaitiana said it was memorable seeing the toroa start to fly away.<\/p>\n
“These special manu give us many more pairs of eyes which will be flying over and surveying the ocean ecosystem, giving us valuable insights. The challenge for Te Poari a Pukekura is to build the body of knowledge about the ocean, the land, and the flora and fauna. The toroa can help us better understand the mauri (life force) of its ecosystem,” he said.<\/p>\n
Toroa are a vulnerable species that are affected by changes to habitat and climate, plastic pollution, and some fishing practices. They reproduce slowly, breeding from about eight years old, with pairs typically raising a chick once every two years.<\/p>\n
The adult albatross will also head across the Pacific Ocean, where they will spend the next 12 months building up reserves for a new breeding season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Royal albatross chick \u0100wheo, which features on the 24-hour livestream Royal Cam, is among the first toroa to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-593754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}