Toroa

Toroa | Southern royal albatross (Diomedea epomophora)

Toroa | Southern Royal albatross, Catseye Bay to Bligh Sound, 2020. Photo by Jean-Claude Stahl. Te Papa (166365)

Call

To be found

Where is home?

Toroa spend 85% of their lives at sea, soaring around the globe at the latitude of Aotearoa

How are they doing?

Threatened – Nationally Vulnerable
Vulnerable to habitat loss, capture in fishing nets (bycatch), climate change.

What are they known for?

• The toroa is the largest living New Zealand native bird, with a wingspan of over three metres! This enables them to soar without flapping their wings.

• Despite being masters of the air, toroa have a hard time getting up there once on the ground. They need quite the run-up, and ideally some help from the wind, to get airborne.

• Toroa consume sea water when they feed. They remove the excess salt from their system through a salt gland above each eye. The salty ‘tears’ then drain along their bill.

Toroa connections

• Roimata toroa, or albatross tears, are depicted in woven tukutuku patterns on the walls of some meeting houses.

• The grace and elegance of the flying toroa are qualities highlighted in the two following whakataukī:
  Me te toroa e tau ana i runga i te au
  Like the albatross nestled upon the current
  
  Me he toroa ngunungunu
  Like a toroa nestling its head under its wing