Birds of Antarctica
The Albatrosses, Fulmars, Shearwaters, Storm and Diving Petrels all have a highly developed olfactory part of their brains adapted to locate their feeding area, each other and their breeding places, all by smell. They have excellent vision as well. Diving petrels dive down to 40m depth. Sooty shearwaters average 67m diving whereas albatrosses have more shallow dives. Threats to albatrosses are rats, cats, fishing debris and pollution, driftnet fishing, trawling, longline fishery. 300,000 seabirds a year die from bycatch. The incubation of an albatross egg is 83 days. They may go out to sea for five years before the juveniles return to land to breed. They can live up to 75 years. The Northern Royal albatross has a 12-foot wing span. The Wandering albatross is the largest at 25 pounds.