Puffins and other seabirds face mounting welfare challenges from climate-driven changes to prey availability, more frequent storms, and pollution. Colony collapse events illustrate the welfare scale of marine ecosystem disruption.
Seabird welfare suffers increasingly from climate-driven disruptions to the marine food web. Puffin chicks starving in the nest after prey fish move to cooler, deeper water experience prolonged starvation distress before death. Adult birds failing to raise chicks despite sustained foraging effort experience the physiological costs of exhausting effort without return. Wrecked seabirds washed ashore after storms experience hypothermia, exhaustion, and disorientation. Oiled seabirds undergoing rehabilitation face distress, handling stress, and the prolonged process of cleaning followed by the challenge of reintegration. The welfare scale of seabird colony failures involves millions of individuals and is driven by systemic changes far removed from the site of suffering.