Atlantic puffins face compound welfare threats from climate-driven sandeels decline, extreme weather events, and burrowing habitat erosion at their island breeding colonies.
Puffin welfare at breeding colonies is most acute during the chick-rearing period, when sandeel availability determines whether pufflings receive adequate nutrition. Chick starvation from sandeel shortage is a slow welfare harm - pufflings become progressively weaker over days before death. Adults repeatedly returning to the burrow with insufficient or no food experience the behavioral frustration of failed provisioning attempts. Marine protected areas that restrict sandeel industrial fishing in puffin foraging ranges directly improve chick welfare by maintaining prey availability. Climate action that limits ocean warming - reducing the northward shift of sandeel populations - is the most important long-term welfare intervention for puffin colonies.