Bird flu has prompted a “catastrophic” fall within the variety of seabirds within the UK, a examine of breeding websites has discovered.
The nice skua, often known as the ‘pirate of the seas’ as a result of it usually steals meals from different birds, fell by 76% from 9,088 to 2,160, in accordance with 2023 analysis by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Almost your complete UK inhabitants of nice skuas reside in Scotland. In 2022, greater than 2,500 died, the examine mentioned.
Numbers of gannets and roseate terns have been additionally significantly hit after the H5N1 pressure of avian flu unfold to wild birds in the summertime of 2021, killing tens of 1000’s of them.
Gannets. File pic: iStock
The populations of the three species had been rising earlier than the outbreak.
Gannets have been badly affected in 2022, with 11,175 killed in Scotland and round 5,000 in Wales.
The RSPB mentioned: “From the brand new surveys carried out throughout the 2023 breeding season at chosen websites the brand new examine recorded devasting losses in gannets, nice skuas and roseate terns.
“The three species noticed declines of 25%, 76%, and 21% respectively, throughout 75%, 81%, and 98% of their UK inhabitants inside a interval of simply 2-9 years.”
Jean Duggan, RSPB avian influenza coverage assistant, instructed The Guardian “that degree of loss in a inhabitants now we have worldwide accountability for is kind of catastrophic. Globally, it is very vital and has a knock-on impact for populations throughout the globe.”
The RSPB studied 13 hen species from May to July 2023, and concluded that 9 confirmed declines of over 10% throughout the websites surveyed.
The fall within the variety of nice skuas, gannets and roseate terns was attributable to hen flu, whereas reductions in sandwich and customary terns have been most definitely all the way down to the illness, the report mentioned.
The charity mentioned the position of the an infection in different species’ declines “is much less clear”.
It discovered the variety of sandwich terns fell by 35% and customary terns by 42% in contrast with a serious census of hen populations in 2015-2021.
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The Climate Show with Tom Heap
Avian flu has grow to be much less acute within the UK in recent months, nevertheless it has prompted mass mortalities of birds in different components of the world.
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Bird flu has grow to be one of many “greatest instant conservation threats confronted by a number of seabirds”, throughout the UK and continental Europe, the report warned.
Climate change, mortality linked to fishing, the results of offshore wind developments and a discount within the availability of meals are different threats going through UK seabirds, in accordance with the RSPB.
