Short-tailed Albatross

The short-tailed, or Steller's, albatross is a very large North Pacific seabird with long, narrow wings and a substantial pink bill. Adults are mainly white with black outer wings, while young birds are dark and mature slowly. Pallas described the species from skins collected by Steller. Older sources use Diomedea albatrus; modern treatments use Phoebastria albatrus (E-Fauna BC; Yamashina Institute).

It ranges across the northern Pacific and breeds principally on Tori-shima and the Senkaku Islands. Feather hunting once removed millions and brought it near extinction; protection enabled recovery. Recent genetic, behavioural and morphological work suggests the two breeding groups may represent cryptic species. Korean waters fall within the wider marine region, but abundance and shore-based occurrence require records rather than assumption (Yamashina Institute; Zootaxa neotype study).