Atlantic puffins face compounding welfare threats from climate-driven prey shifts and coastal erosion destroying nesting burrows. Understanding these pressures guides effective conservation action.
Puffin chicks that receive insufficient fish face slow starvation, with parents unable to compensate for oceanographic prey shifts. Adults repeatedly making fruitless foraging trips experience significant energetic stress and may abandon chicks. At the population level, multi-year breeding failure leads to gradual colony collapse, with remaining adults suffering reduced body condition and disrupted pair bonds. Invasive predator pressure compounds these stressors, with adults showing sustained fear responses in heavily-predated colonies.