Saving the Albatross: Fashioning an Environmental Regime

Abstract

After enduring decades of exploitation, associated with marine‐mammal persecution during the nineteenth century in the Southern Hemisphere, many albatross populations recovered. Albatross hunting ended by the mid 1900s as nations set aside breeding islands as parks and preserves. However, researchers began to note declines in the 1960s and traced them to deaths at sea due to industrial fishing. In this article I note the historic use of albatrosses and tracks efforts to establish international accords among states that will guide efforts to save what has become one of the most threatened bird groups in the world.

• albatross
• bird conservation
• environmental regime
• seabirds