An Atlantic Yellow Nosed Albatross from Gough Island is found dead in Brazil after swallowing the sole of a shoe less than a month after fledging

A juvenile globally Endangered Atlantic Yellow Nosed Albatross Thallassarche chlororhynchos was found dead on 21 April this year by Alan Marques Ribeiro on Geribá Beach, Armação dos Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during a routine survey as part of a beach monitoring project.  An autopsy was performed by veterinarian Paula Baldassin, upon which a shoe sole was recovered from the bird’s stomach. The sole had resulted in severe ulcers and perforation of the tissue wall, likely causing the bird’s death.

Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross No. 8-88207

Stomach containing part of a shoe

Shoe sole exposed

The dead bird carried SAFRING (South African Bird Ringing Unit) band No. 8-88207, placed on it as a chick in a monitoring colony on Gough Island in the South Atlantic on 15 March. The chick was reported to have fledged between 26 and 31 March 2018, less than a month before its recovery a calculated 3577 km away.

SAFRING report

Read SAFRING reports on the recovery here and here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 May 2018