Seabird colonies provide population-level welfare indicators. Understanding what colony monitoring data tells us about individual welfare helps target conservation interventions.
Seabird colony data captures welfare at population scale. Chick starvation due to prey scarcity causes prolonged suffering before death. Disease outbreaks from HPAI cause neurological symptoms and rapid death at colony scale. Welfare interventions are limited but monitoring enables targeted protection of key foraging areas and fishing exclusion zones that improve food availability for breeding birds.