Wildlife

Wild Puffin Climate Impacts Welfare

Atlantic puffins face welfare challenges from climate-driven changes to sand eel prey availability and breeding colony conditions.

Key Facts

Puffins depend on sand eels as primary food for chick rearing
Warming seas are reducing sand eel abundance and distribution
Chick starvation is increasing at some UK colonies including Shetland
Puffins also face plastic ingestion and longline fishing bycatch
Long-lived seabirds can buffer population impacts for decades before collapse

Welfare Considerations

Individual puffin chick starvation is a prolonged welfare harm caused by climate-driven prey scarcity. Adult birds make exhausting foraging trips of increasing distance as prey shifts poleward. Climate mitigation is the fundamental intervention but sand eel fishery management provides an immediate, tractable welfare protection.

What You Can Do

Support sand eel fishery closures protecting puffin breeding areas
Donate to seabird monitoring programs tracking population trends
Reduce your carbon footprint to help address climate-driven prey shifts