{"id":650392,"date":"2026-10-18T19:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/650392\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T19:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:20:10","slug":"puffins-could-almost-disappear-from-british-isles-over-next-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/650392\/","title":{"rendered":"Puffins could almost disappear from British Isles over next 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK holds around 10 per cent of the world\u2019s Atlantic puffin population, with many of the largest breeding colonies found in Scotland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Atlantic puffin is one of 10 seabird species<\/a> predicted to suffer long-term effects on their populations as a result of climate change, as warming air and sea temperatures reduce food availability and drive extreme weather events.<\/p>\n

Recent declines have been linked to increasingly frequent marine heatwaves and intense storms, which led to thousands perishing at sea last winter.<\/p>\n

Puffins spend up to eight months of the year at sea, only returning to land to breed in early spring.<\/p>\n

They often mate for life, and pairs return to the same nesting spot each year where the female lays a single egg.<\/p>\n

Habit management programmes in place<\/p>\n

A new book, The Puffin: A Biography, written by Stephen Moss, the renowned naturalist and best-selling author, follows the lifecycle of the puffin throughout a calendar year and examines the bird\u2019s place in popular and literary culture.<\/p>\n

Mr Moss said: \u201cThe Puffin is a real paradox: it rivals the robin as Britain\u2019s best-loved bird, yet most people have never seen one in the flesh.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn spring and summer they gather in large, noisy colonies to breed, but spend the autumn and winter far out to sea in the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite their small size, and gentle, clown-like appearance, puffins will fight to save their precious catch of sandeels from being seized by an opportunistic \u2013 and much larger \u2013 skua or gull.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK holds around 10 per cent of the world\u2019s Atlantic puffin population, with many of the largest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[14179,1477,2592,3946,85,46,43,292335,141,2865,228064,2082,386],"class_list":["post-650392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-birds","tag-climate-change","tag-conservation","tag-endangered-species","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-puffins","tag-science","tag-standard","tag-sunday-telegraph-news","tag-uk-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}