waters, taking the eggs of flying fish, live fish, fish offal, squid and to a lesser extent crustaceans. It will also consume floating debris, including plastics. Conservation The black-footed albatross is considered near threatened by the IUCN, because it is taken incidentally by longline fishing. An estimated 4,000 are taken every year, based on the number taken in 1990; other estimates put the number at 8,000, although more recent numbers are at around 6,150 per year with the majority of deaths from Taiwanese and Japanese fishing fleets. It is also vulnerable to oil and ingestion of floating plastics, which reduces the space in the stomach available for food to be brought to the chick. Finally volcanic eruptions on Torishima continues to be a threat. The black-footed albatross has an occurrence range of and a breeding range of , with a population of 129,000 adult birds. Of these birds 24,000 pairs breed on Midway Atoll and 21,000 pairs breed on Laysan Island. Torishima has 1,218 pairs, the Bonin Islands have 23 pairs and there are about 400 pairs on offshore Mexican islands with 337 on Islas Guadalupe. All of these numbers come from estimates from 2005 to 2007. All of its nesting sites in the U.S. are protected, along with a buffer zone around these islands. Within this buffer zone longline fishing is outlawed. Almost 80% of the breeding population is counted or sampled each year and most fisheries utilize seabird bycatch prevention measures. Footnotes References Whittow, G. Causey. 1993. Black-footed Albatross (Diomedea nigripes). In The Birds of North America, No. 65 (A. Poole and F. Gill, Eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, D.C.: The American Ornithologists’ Union. External links Species factsheet - BirdLife International Photos and fact file - ARKive black-footed albatross Birds of Japan Birds of Hawaii Birds of the Pacific Ocean black-footed albatross black-footed albatross