Day Six of ‘WADWEEK2026’. Suggestions for themes for future World Albatross Days welcomed

“A New Dawn”.  Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross and Gough Island by Deepti Jain of Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN), after photographs by Chris Jones and Laurie Smaglick Johnson

Tomorrow is the Seventh World Albatross Day to be celebrated by conservationists worldwide.  Each year ACAP has chosen a theme to mark the day.  The inaugural theme in 2020 was “Eradicating Island Pests”.  “Ensuring Albatross-friendly Fisheries” followed in 2021, then came “Climate Change” in 2022, “Plastic Pollution” in 2023, “Marine Protected Areas” in 2024 and “Effects of Disease” in 2025.  This year’s theme is “Habitat Restoration".

Bycatch remains an issue: a trawler in the South Atlantic is surrounded by Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris, photograph by Leo Tamini

The seven themes covered by World Albatross Day since its inauguration address most of, but not all, the risks that albatrosses and petrels face.  At varying levels of significance for the different ACAP-listed species, threats, real and potential, include light pollution at sea and on land, offshore structures (oil rigs and wind farms) and human disturbance and exploitation.

These threats could be considered as themes for future World Albatross Days.  Notably, light pollution affects at least four of the ACAP-listed petrel species, but not, it seems, albatrosses, which in the main breed on uninhabited islands.  Light pollution becoming a theme for a World Albatross Day would imply that the day should also address conservation risks facing petrels and shearwaters.  Bycatch of albatrosses and petrels by fisheries continues, so a theme could revisit this issue, perhaps directed at high-seas fisheries.

Street lights down ACAP-listed and Endangered Westland Petrels Procellaria westlandica on South Island, New Zealand, leading to them becoming roadkill from passing vehicles

ACAP Latest News would be pleased to receive comments on the above suggested themes, or proposals for new ones.  It is wished to announce the theme for World Albatross Day on 19 June 2027 during the second half of the current year.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 18 May 2026