Concerns for red-listed Scottish puffins after mass deaths

Ornithologists call for urgent research as Scottish puffins among those found washed up dead in Spain

Matt Mathers
Sunday 29 January 2023 15:36 GMT
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Puffin uses a stick to scratch an itch

Conservationists are concerned about Scotland’s population of puffins after hundreds of the birds were found dead or in poor health along the shores of Spain’s Canary Islands.

British ornithologists - those who study birds - have called for urgent research after a number of puffins washed up on the Spanish archipelago and other mainland regions, including Galicia and Asturias.

Scientists have so far been unable to establish how the puffins died but some fear changes in oceanography and climate change could be to blame.

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