More of200 Atlantic puffins have been found dead in March, although the actual number of victims could be in the thousands. The rapid performance of theIberian Seabird Group (GIAM)SEO / BirdLife has made it possible to obtain information on this case of bordering of which the causes are still unknown.
The alarm went off in Castro-Urdiales (Cantabria), after a dozen dead birds appeared in a coastal stretch of a few kilometers in the first days of March, as announced by Jesús Menéndez Quintana, coordinator of the GIAM in Cantabria. Faced with this situation, this SEO / BirdLife working group convened a Coastal Inspection of Shorebirds (ICAO) in order to assess the scope of the event. On March 13 and 14, coinciding with the days of maximum effort of the ICAO, up to 158 shoreline puffins accumulated, of which 4 were alive and died shortly after being admitted to the recovery centers.
The phenomenon lost intensity in the third week of March, with the exception of some points of the Asturian coast that registered the maximums then, as Manuel Fernández Pajuelo, coordinator of the GIAM in Asturias, comments. On the 26th, at the close of data collection, the total amounted to 202 specimens, highlighting the 73 specimens found in Asturias and 82 in Cantabria.
Since in cases like this most of the birds sink before reaching the coast, various studies suggest that the proportion of shorebirds can be of the order of 10-20% or even lower, sothe total number of birds affected could be in the thousands.
Unknown causes
It is therefore pending to establish the cause of mortality of these birds, which could have been affected bythe prolonged Atlantic storms of the previous weeks and the resulting food shortages. Although in this case the death could be due to natural causes, numerous human activities also represent a serious threat to seabirds, including fishing (accidental catches) and pollution (especially due to the transport of hydrocarbons), etc.
Managing these activities well to minimize their impact on birds in particular and on the marine environment in general is vital to guarantee their conservation.
