Farne Islands
The plight of puffins is worrying the National Trust after the number of breeding pairs on the Farne Islands dropped by a third in five years.
It has alarmed conservationists because the islands, off the Northumberland coast, are home to England’s largest colony and previous audits had shown an increase in breeding. This year the results of a three-month survey - in which wardens have to stretch their arms inside each nesting burrow to count the birds - show a fall from 55,674 pairs in 2003 to 36,500 pairs.
The trust had hoped the numbers would reach 60,000 pairs or more this year. However, the decline was evident on each of the eight islands and on four the drop was as much as 50 per cent.
A similar study of puffins on the Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth, another leading breeding site, also found a sharp reduction of numbers from 69,300 to 41,000.
Trust officials are convinced that many birds are failing to survive the eight months they spend at sea. They do not know if puffin losses are due to more intensive storms as a result of climate change or overfishing.
David Steel, the trust’s head warden on the Farne Islands, said that young puffins were successfully fledging but were no longer returning in subsequent years to breed.
Source :http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4402285.ece
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