Atlantic puffins face population decline linked to climate-driven shifts in the availability of sand eels and other prey fish, illustrating how fisheries management connects to seabird welfare at a fundamental level.
Puffin welfare connects directly to the welfare of the prey fish they depend on and to the integrity of the marine food web. A puffin returning repeatedly from diving forays with nothing to feed its chick experiences the progressive failure of parental behavior — ultimately leading to chick abandonment and starvation. Chicks that receive insufficient sand eels cannot develop flight feathers and starve in the burrow. The scale of chick failure in poor prey years can be near-total across a colony. Rat predation on nesting islands causes acute death of eggs and chicks with additional parental distress. Avian influenza causes rapid neurological deterioration and death in individual birds.