Tales from Te Papa - Albatross

...Up in Wadestown I brought a couple [of albatrosses] down on the bus, one in a backpack and one in a sack, and they were both alive, and you know how people are in the morning waiting for the bus. They sort of looked at this backpack and there's this huge head and dark eye poking out of the top, and a sack with another huge head and a dark eye poking out. I just got on the bus and nobody actually had the courage to ask me anything about them at all — typical New Zealanders.

– Te Papa Tongarewa Curator of Birds Sandy Bartle remembers albatross victims from the 1968 Wahine storm

We've got 2000 albatrosses in the collection ... it's the biggest collection of albatrosses in the world.

– Former Te Papa Tongarewa Curator of Birds Sandy Bartle