Wildlife

Razorbill Welfare and Incidental Bycatch

Razorbills are closely related to guillemots and face similar welfare threats from fishing bycatch, oil spills, and climate-driven prey changes in the North Atlantic.

Key Facts

Razorbills dive to depths of 120 metres to catch fish
They are caught incidentally in gillnets and some longlines
Razorbills winter far offshore making monitoring of wintering welfare difficult
Climate change is shifting their prey species northward
They are classified as Near Threatened globally

Welfare Considerations

Gillnet entanglement causes drowning when razorbills cannot surface after becoming trapped. Longline hook ingestion causes internal injuries. Oil spill events cause rapid hypothermia. Climate-driven prey shifts force birds to forage further north of breeding colonies increasing energetic costs. Prey scarcity during breeding causes chick starvation affecting colony productivity.

What You Can Do

Support gillnet bycatch monitoring and reduction programs
Donate to seabird tracking programs providing winter distribution data
Advocate for Marine Protected Areas covering key wintering areas
Support climate action protecting North Atlantic prey fish distributions
Engage with fisheries management on seabird bycatch avoidance