Experts are concerned about the decline of puffins along the British east coast. In 2022, an inventory of the species – classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as “vulnerable” – will be made off the Isle of May and the Farne Islands.
– The population grew significantly during the 1980s and 1990s, then came a sudden crash. We lost almost 30 percent of all puffins in the early 2000s, after which the population has slowly grown stronger but it is nowhere near what it used to look like, says David Steel, manager at the nature reserve on the Isle of May.
A small inventory last year at Farne Islands led to concern when just over 36,000 breeding puffin pairs were found, compared to almost 42,500 in 2018. Puffins stay with the same partner for life and lay only one egg per year – something that makes population rebuilding difficult.
The decrease is explained as an effect of, among other things, global warming, precipitation and a shortage of puffin food.