Atlantic puffins face increasing welfare challenges from climate-driven changes in prey availability and rising sea temperatures. Their colonial nesting on remote islands makes both threats and conservation responses distinctive.
Puffin welfare is increasingly shaped by food availability and climate-driven ecosystem change. Adults that cannot find sufficient sandeel within their foraging range face energy depletion during the demanding chick-rearing period, while chicks that receive inadequate food have reduced growth rates and may die from starvation. HPAI has added acute mortality to these chronic food stress pressures, with some UK colonies showing significant losses in recent outbreak years. The welfare of individual puffins is inseparable from the health of the North Sea ecosystem - the complex chain from climate to plankton to sandeels to puffins means that individual welfare improvement requires ocean-scale environmental management.