Less than 1000 birds of this taxon are thought to exist in about twenty colonies on remote Macquarie Island and associated islets.Certainly
when we visited we saw no birds on land, although numbers of immature birds were in evidence. Listed as Vulnerable, the population has suffered a decline at the end of the last century. However,
this is thought to be more to do with storm conditions, as the island is thought to be free of introduced predators, although obviously skuas take some chicks. There is no reason that numbers could
not increase again given a change in the frequency of bad weather.
Taken Macquarie Island and environs November 2003
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