Wildlife

Atlantic Puffin Welfare: Burrow Colony Pressures

Atlantic puffins face welfare challenges from food scarcity, plastic ingestion, and burrow competition at breeding colonies.

Key Facts

Puffins breed in clifftop burrows and can live over 20 years
Sand eels are their primary prey; declines force longer foraging trips
Climate change shifts prey distribution away from breeding sites
Plastic pollution found in stomachs of many North Atlantic puffins
UK populations have declined significantly since the 1980s

Welfare Considerations

Puffins show clear welfare costs when food is scarce: adults lose body condition and chick starvation increases. Longer foraging trips elevate exhaustion risk. Plastic ingestion reduces digestive efficiency and can cause injury or death. Bycatch in fishing nets kills thousands annually. Rats at colonies destroy eggs and chicks.

What You Can Do

Support Marine Stewardship Council certified sustainable fisheries
Back rat eradication programmes on UK puffin islands
Reduce single-use plastic to cut marine plastic pollution
Support the RSPB and BirdLife International puffin monitoring
Advocate for no-take fishing zones near major puffin colonies