The movements of two wandering albatrosses, one of each sex, breeding at South Georgia, were tracked using satellite telemetry, particularly to assess whether such birds could be at risk from longline fishing operations in the subtropics. Full details of the performance (number and quality of uplinks) of the Toyocom transmitters are provided, together with data on flight speeds and night and daytime travel by the albatrosses. The female, tracked for seventeen days—covering three foraging trips totalling 13951 km - had a much more northerly distribution than the male, which made two trips to sea during the same period and travelled a minimum distance of 9280 km. On one trip the female frequented the area off Brazil known to be used for longline fisheries. The distributional differences between the sexes support earlier suggestions, based on at-sea observations, that the observed high mortality rates of South Georgian females could be due to a greater likelihood of incidental mortality in longline fishing. These results also show that the presence of females off Brazil can include birds still rearing chicks, rather than simply representing post-breeding dispersal.

The energy expenditure of ten (five male, five female) wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans Linnaeus 1758) brooding chicks on Bird Island, South Georgia, was measured using doubly-labelled water. At-sea foraging behaviour was measured in the same individuals using satellite telemetry and leg-mounted activity recorders. Mean mass-specific daily energy expenditure was 341 kJ kg−1 day−1 during a mean of 4.12 days at sea and did not differ between the sexes. This is significantly lower than previously reported for the species and the lowest recorded for any albatross. There were no significant relationships between energy expenditure and the proportion of time spent flying (59.7%), distance flown (1448 km) or average speed (16.5 km h−1) suggesting that flying is not the most energetically expensive activity during foraging trips.

Records (by a scientific observer on a longline fishing vessel around the Falkland Islands) of 86 different individually colour-banded wandering albatrosses from South Georgia, provide new insights into the use of the waters of the Patagonian shelf slope by birds from breeding grounds some 600 km to the south-east across the Antarctic Polar Front. Birds recorded were aged from 3–39 years, almost the full range (except 1 and 2 year olds) of South Georgia colour-banded birds, about 5% of whose colour-banded population was observed during the study. Immature birds (up to age 7 years) formed only 9% of the total; this may reflect relative absence from the area but might also relate to their subordinate status to adults at fishing vessels. Most birds seen were current breeders at South Georgia, including both sexes in the month prior to arrival on the breeding grounds (October), females during the pre-laying exodus (December) and both sexes during incubation (January) and throughout the main chick-rearing period (May, June, October). Only birds which had already failed were seen in the brooding period (March–April), when foraging trips are too short to reach the Falklands. Females outnumbered males in all these categories, supporting suggestions of different distributions of the sexes at sea during breeding. Birds of both sexes that had bred at South Georgia in the previous year were seen mainly between January and April. Birds that had not bred for at least three years were mainly males and mainly seen in January. These data indicate the importance of the waters near the Patagonian Shelf, especially around the Falklands, for wandering albatrosses from South Georgia, particularly breeding birds but also birds in their year(s) between breeding attempts. This is of particular relevance, given the globally threatened status of the species and the possibility of hydrocarbon exploitation in waters around the Falklands.