The worldwide population of Laysan Albatrosses underwent large declines from egg and feather collecting around the early 1900s (e.g., over 300,000 birds were killed on a single colony in 1909 alone). However, since then, the population has likely recovered. The total global population of Laysan Albatrosses may exceed 1.7 million birds (Naughton et al. 2007), with a breeding population currently estimated at 666,658 pairs (ACAP 2017). The majority (>99%) of Laysan Albatrosses breed on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. At sea, Laysan Albatrosses range across the entire North Pacific Ocean and most of the Bering Sea. Their centre of concentration is primarily south of the Aleutian Island chain and west of the International Date Line (ACAP 2012a). Within Canada, the species occurs in low numbers (most likely < 200 individuals each year; Hunt et al. 2000) throughout the year, and is found over offshore and continental shelf waters off British Columbia. They are most numerous in Canada between November and February (Kenyon et al. 2009); this coincides with the average start of egg laying and the end of the incubation periods (ACAP 2012a). Laysan Albatrosses have not been sufficiently monitored in Canada to reliably determine a change in population status relative to 1970. As such, a national population goal for the Laysan Albatross has not yet been determined.
