Access

Brief Communications

Nature 406, 955-956 (31 August 2000) | doi:10.1038/35023068

Open Innovation Challenges

Oceanic respite for wandering albatrosses

Henri Weimerskirch1,3 & Rory P. Wilson2

Top

Birds taking time off from breeding head for their favourite long-haul destinations.

Top

What oceanic seabirds do outside their breeding periods is something of a mystery, although altogether these "sabbaticals' add up to more than half of their lifetime and are probably a key feature of their life history. Here we use geolocation systems based on light-intensity measurements to show that during these periods wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) leave the foraging grounds that they frequent while breeding for specific, individual oceanic sectors and spend the rest of the year there — each bird probably returns to the same area throughout its life. This discovery of individual home-range preferences outside the breeding season has important implications for the conservation of albatrosses threatened by the development of longline fisheries.