Atlantic puffin colonies face welfare threats from climate change affecting prey fish, plastic pollution and introduced predators that cause significant breeding failure and individual suffering.
Puffin colony welfare is threatened by the convergence of climate change effects on prey availability and the persistence of predation threats from introduced mammals on nesting islands. Individual chick starvation when parents cannot find appropriate prey within commuting range of colonies represents welfare suffering at potentially large scale during poor prey years. Introduced predators create acute welfare crises — rats and mink that access puffin colonies can kill nearly all chicks and eggs in a season. Predator eradication from nesting islands has achieved dramatic recovery at some sites, demonstrating that individual welfare and population recovery can be achieved simultaneously through targeted intervention.