The UK’s third largest puffin colony is declining and climate change is a major factor Rising sea temperatures are forcing their preferred prey further north, and the birds have struggled to adapt

Climate change is one of the major factors behind the declining puffin population on the Isle of May, home to the UK’s third largest colony, researchers have said.

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Experts said the population on the Scottish island, five miles off the Fife coast, plummeted by nearly 33 per cent between 2008 and 2013, STV reported.

They said rising sea temperatures caused by climate change is “the biggest concern”.

Sea temperatures forcing prey north

The increase in water temperature has forced sand eels, puffins’ main source of food, further north, leaving the birds struggling to find food. They have been adapting to eat more sprats as a result.

David Steel, Isle of May reserve manager, told STV: “If we talk about a change in sea temperature of just one degree, the plankton move north.



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“The sand eels follow then, and then the predators – such as the puffins – which feed on them, they don’t have their food source.

“That’s what the problem is – it all has a big knock-on effect.

“Puffins can live up to 30, 35 years. They can tolerate one poor season. But when it’s year after year after year of poor summers, that’s when the population can be affected and things can go bad.”

There are currently around 40,000 pairs of puffins living on the Isle of May, and numbers have been more stable over the last few years. They return from the North Sea and North Atlantic after each winter to bond and raise their young.

Fears over puffin numbers

Outside of the UK, climate change has been linked to deaths of thousands of puffins in Alaska.

A study released last month found up to 9,000 puffins and other seabirds had starved to death after rising sea temperatures had caused the fish they ate to move north, creating a shift in fish populations, BBC News reported.

Puffins are one of the few bird species which mate for life.



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Last month the National Trust announced it was changing its five-yearly puffin census to an annual one, amid fears over their numbers.

Puffins have been classed as a red-listed bird species due to a sever decline in the population over the past 25 years.

The charity said its work to care for the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland, one of the UK’s most popular puffing-viewing spots, is critical to the birds’ ongoing breeding success.

‘There may be no more puffins on the Farnes’

Tom Hendry, a member of the National Trust‘s ranger team on the Farne Islands, said at the time: “Sand eel populations in the North Sea are being affected by two things: overfishing and climate change – with rising sea temperatures.

“These factors are driving the good quality plankton which sand eels feed on further north, resulting in a poorer quality of plankton in this area for sand eels to feed upon.