Climate change is disrupting the prey availability for seabirds, causing chick starvation and colony failures. Seabird welfare is increasingly shaped by ecosystem-level changes.
Seabird chick starvation is a welfare emergency affecting hundreds of thousands of birds annually. Chicks that starve over multiple days experience prolonged distress before death. Avian influenza causes acute, often rapid mortality but in some species causes neurological symptoms before death. Adults undertaking longer foraging trips become exhausted and may abandon nests. The cumulative effect of climate change, prey depletion, avian flu, and other stressors means seabirds face an unprecedented welfare crisis driven by human activities.