Wandering Albatross - Relationship With Humans

Relationship With Humans

Sailors used to capture the birds for their long wing bones, which they manufactured into tobacco-pipe stems. The early explorers of the great Southern Sea cheered themselves with the companionship of the albatross in their dreary solitudes; and the evil fate of him who shot with his cross-bow the "bird of good omen" is familiar to readers of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The metaphor of "an albatross around his neck" also comes from the poem and indicates an unwanted burden causing anxiety or hindrance. In the days of sail the bird often accompanied ships for days, not merely following it, but wheeling in wide circles around it without ever being observed to land on the water. It continued its flight, apparently untired, in tempestuous as well as moderate weather.

The Maori of New Zealand used albatross as a food source. They caught them by baiting hooks. Because the wing bones of albatross were light but very strong Maori used these to create a number of different items including koauau (flutes), needles, tattooing chisel blades, and barbs for fishhooks.