North Sea puffins in danger

This video is footage of Atlantic puffins by Project Puffin, off the coast of Maine, USA.

Part 2 of the video is here.

By Emily Dugan in British daily The Independent:

Warmer seas blamed for rapid decline of Scottish puffin colony

Wednesday, 4 June 2008

Atlantic puffins, until recently one of the North Sea‘s rare wildlife success stories, are joining the ranks of dwindling birdlife after new data revealed their numbers on a crucial island colony are in sharp decline.

Researchers on the Isle of May, home to the largest puffin colony in the North Sea, have found that after 40 years of steady increase the resident population has plummeted by almost a third in the past five years.

The Scottish island has been at the centre of the UK’s research into puffins for more than three decades, and findings are often seen as an indication of the state of the birds nationally.

See also here.

British birds at risk: here.

Birds in the Guardian: here.