It is home to a large colony of white-capped albatrosses: about 65,000 pairs – nearly the entire world's population – nest there.

On 7 March 1907, the Dundonald, a steel, four-masted barque, sank after running ashore on the west side of Disappointment Island.

[4] They survived by eating mainly white-capped albatrosses (mollymawks), seals, and roots of the plant Azorella polaris.

[3] They built coracles out of veronica trees and used it to paddle to the mainland, where they eventually found the supplies and boat at Port Ross, a castaway depot, on Auckland Island.

[7][8] Whilst aboard the ship Sarah in 1807, he unsuccessfully surveyed the island for fur seals and a base to reach the nearby fur seal rookeries on the western cliffs of Auckland Island.