Like other albatross species, the greatest threat to the waved albatross is human fishing activities. Many are unintentionally drowned by longline fishing boats; a fishing method that involves a single line up to 130 kilometres long, with thousands of baited hooks attached to it, being pulled behind a boat. Waved albatrosses, scavenging in the ocean, try to eat the bait from the line as it is set behind the boat, but instead swallow the hooks and are dragged under and drowned (7). Currently, waved albatross are only affected by longlining when feeding off the coast of Peru, as industrial longline fishing is prohibited in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. However, there is pressure from the fishing industry to allow longlining within the reserve, which would have an extremely damaging impact on the population of waved albatross (8).
Waved albatross are also threatened by water pollution, such as oil slicks; the ingestion of contaminants, and occasional intentional harvesting for human consumption (3) (9). Additionally, because it breeds on only one, or possibly two, islands, this makes it very vulnerable to any chance events (1). As albatross are long-lived birds, they are exceptionally vulnerable to the effects of any threats, as they can not breed fast enough to replace the numbers being killed (6).