Black-legged kittiwakes are the UK's most numerous gull and are now colonising urban buildings as natural cliff sites become more competitive and food scarcity intensifies.
Kittiwake welfare is severely threatened by the collapse of sandeel populations. Breeding pairs that fail to raise chicks suffer the physiological cost of breeding attempts without reproductive success - a welfare harm compounded year after year. Urban birds face harassment and nest removal by humans intolerant of their presence. Chicks that fall from narrow ledges often die. The long-term trend of population collapse represents millions of individual animals experiencing food scarcity and reproductive failure.