The last toroa/northern royal albatross chick of the season has set off from Pukekura/Taiaroa Head, wrapping up the most successful season on record.
38 chicks fledged from the colony, including 18 which were fitted with trackers showing their location using the Global Positioning System – with some already most of the way across the Pacific heading towards South America.
DOC Coastal Otago Albatross Ranger Sharyn Broni says this is the most chicks on record to fledge from the colony in a season, eclipsing the previous record of 33 from the last two seasons.
"It's been a fantastic season at Pukekura. The weather has been great with slightly cooler temperatures over summer, so there haven't been overheating or flystrike issues, which is better for both the birds and rangers.
"The chicks have also needed less supplementary feeding than in past years, which suggests there was plenty of food available for the parents. We even found a 2kg eel next to one nest, which a parent had brought back! There were several chicks, however, which lost one or both parents and required a lot of support from the rangers to ensure they were a healthy weight prior to fledging.
"Unfortunately, one chick took off successfully but was found dead at a local beach several days later. We don't know what the cause was. It's sad, but it's natural that not all the chicks will be successful once they leave the colony."
DOC co-manages the albatross colony as part of Te Poari a Pukekura (the Pukekura Co-management Trust) alongside Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou, Korako Karetai Trust and Dunedin City Council, with the support of the Otago Peninsula Trust. The colony has grown from one breeding pair in 1937 to more than 80 pairs in 2025.
As well as supporting the only mainland albatross colony in the world, Pukekura/Taiaroa Head also has deep cultural significance and is a biodiversity hotspot. Te Poari a Pukekura play an important role in managing this special place.
Te Poari a Pukekura Chair Bill Karaitiana says Pukekura is a place where our tupuna were born and also where they were schooled.
"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 purpose of this process is to better understand the toroa as an indicator of the mauri (life force) of its ecosystem. The Department of Conservation has made in-roads into gathering this data. Overall, the increase in the health and population of the toroa is a great result and supported by underlying principles of wairua, whakapapa and mauri."
Hoani Langsbury, Ecotourism Manager for the Otago Peninsula Trust responsible for the Royal Albatross Centre, said he "could not be prouder of the respective teams that worked together at Pukekura to enable this increase in fledging success!"
Sharyn Broni says it's fitting to have had such a great season as the round-the-clock livestream Royal Cam, which watches one chick grow from an egg until fledging, celebrated its 10th season.
"Kaewa, as this year's Royal Cam chick was named, left the colony on 17 September and is living up to her name, which means to travel or roam. Her tracker shows she has flown more than 2800 km across the Pacific Ocean."
Sharyn says while its great toroa are doing so well on the mainland thanks to our help, it's not such good news for the wider population.
"About 99% of the toroa population breeds on small islands in the Chatham Islands and this is a species that faces a range of threats in the wild.
"One way you can help toroa when you're out naturing is by picking up rubbish, because toroa will mistake plastic in the ocean for food, which can be fatal for the adult or the chick, if rubbish is regurgitated to them."
Anyone who wants to learn more about the species can tune into the round-the-clock livestream Royal Cam, which follows one toroa pair as they raise a chick from egg to fledging. The livestream is a collaboration between DOC and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Background information
Toroa/northern royal albatross are one of the largest seabirds in the world, with wingspans up to 3 m. They are a vulnerable species that are affected by changes to habitat and climate, plastic pollution, and some fishing practices. They also reproduce slowly, with breeding starting from about 8 years old and breeding pairs typically raising a chick once every two years.
The colony at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head is the only mainland site in the world where toroa/northern royal albatross breed.
A taonga species, toroa have a conservation status of 'Nationally Vulnerable', with an estimated population of about 17,000 mature individuals.
The Royal Cam livestream is run in partnership with Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology in New York, helping the lives of these albatrosses reach an international audience. Now in its tenth year, it receives millions of views from people all around the globe annually.
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