Robert Webb, Native Bird Recovery Centre manager, said 'Daniel' the wandering albatross is about 2 years old, weighs 6kg and has a wingspan of 2.5 metres. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Robert Webb, Native Bird Recovery Centre manager, said 'Daniel' the wandering albatross is about 2 years old, weighs 6kg and has a wingspan of 2.5 metres. Photo / Michael Cunningham
When Daniel Leef decided to take a ride with his dad while he was patrolling Ninety Mile Beach he did not expect to end up distracting an albatross while his father attempted to bundle it into a jacket.
Daniel's dad, Shane Leef, a fisheries officer for MPI, was doing asolo patrol on Ninety Mile Beach on Sunday so Daniel, an ambulance officer from Kaitaia, thought he would tag along.
'Daniel' the albatross.
"Usually when we go out we see some pretty cool things. We went past Hukatere and we saw [the albatross] sitting there alone and we didn't recognise what it was at first. I was choosing a song on my phone and we went past and turned back and thought 'bloody hell' so we pulled over and had a look," he said.
Sitting there on the beach was a wandering albatross - a large seabird from the family Diomedeidae, which has a circumpolar range in the Southern Ocean. Some individual wandering albatross are known to circumnavigate the Southern Ocean three times - covering more than 120,000km in a year.
Daniel said it was the first time he had seen an albatross. He said his dad phoned the Department of Conservation (DoC) to find out if they were allowed to move the bird. He said there were vehicle tracks on both sides of the albatross suggesting people had driven around it and did not want the bird to be hurt.
When DoC phoned back they asked if Daniel and Shane were able to catch it.
"It was really windy. I went around the front to distract it while dad crept up on him. I managed to keep it distracted and dad was able to get up close and scoop it up with my rain jacket," he said.
Daniel said his dad was very nervous about catching the albatross but once they had it in the jacket, it remained still.
Daniel Leef said his dad Shane Leef (pictured) was pretty nervous as he crept up on this 6kg albatross trying to bundle it into Daniel's fluorescent ambulance jacket.
They ensured it was wrapped tightly so it did not spread its wings in the back of the truck while they drove about 30 minutes to the Far North Ambulance Station to meet DoC.
"I was really worried, I didn't want that huge thing loose in the back of the truck, it would frighten him," he said.
Once the albatross was given to DoC it was transported to Whangarei's Native Bird Recovery Centre. When the Northern Advocate visited yesterday he had a good feed of hoki fillets in front of him.
Centre manager Robert Webb said that at this time of the year, it was not uncommon to see three or four albatross in the centre. Mr Webb believes this bird would have been blown in by a storm. "He's healthy, but tired," said Mr Webb.
He believed the albatross was a male, about 2 years old, weighing 6kg with a wingspan of 2.5 metres.
Mr Leef, who said he and his dad love wildlife, said he was glad to hear the wandering albatross was doing well and said it would be pretty cool if the bird was named after him.
When the Advocate put the possibility to Mr Webb he said: "Daniel? Yeah we could name it Daniel."
