Wildlife experts have reported a “devastating” bird flu outbreak at the UK mainland’s greatest breeding nest of Arctic terns.
In the last 2 weeks, more than 600 dead chicks have actually been recuperated from the Long Nanny website, on the Northumberland coast, which is taken care of by National Trust rangers.
Long Nanny is normally a safe breeding place for the Arctic terns and the influenza break out has actually come at the peak of the breeding season, threatening to reverse gains made in recent years.
The site is also important for the rarer little terns, and there are fears they too could be affected.
A bird flu outbreak on the nearby Farne Islands killed over 6,000 seabirds last year.
A team of six rangers typically works at Long Nanny, on 24-hour watch throughout the breeding season, to protect the eggs from natural predators including foxes and stoats.
But this year, it seems bird flu is posing a bigger challenge to the seabirds which migrate from their northern hemisphere breeding grounds to the Antarctic and back again each year.
James Porteus, lead ranger at Long Nanny, said: “The season started so well, with over 1,600 pairs of Arctic terns returning to breed this season – the highest number of breeding pairs at the site since 2018, and we had recorded 2,600 eggs.
“But, a couple of weeks ago, we started to notice that some of the chicks were dying and since then we have picked up over 600 dead Arctic tern chicks from across the site.
“We have also started to discover some dead adults now which is equally heartbreaking and worrying.
“Although we have been monitoring for and removing dead birds throughout the breeding season, we fear that an infected bird may have got into the colony and infected our breeding Arctic terns.”
Ben McCarthy, head of nature conservation and restoration ecology at the National Trust, said: “After last year’s outbreak of bird influenza on the Farne Islands, when Long Nanny was untouched, we were truly confident that the nest would get away the worst of this fatal illness.
“However, this news, is ravaging for these susceptible birds and it will take years for the populations to recuperate.
“Seabirds are especially susceptible due to the fact that they are long lived and have low performance which indicates any decrease in breeding grownups, or growing young birds can have a really considerable influence on entire populations.
“We are dealing with our partners to get a much better understanding of the long-lasting effect of bird influenza on our worldwide essential seabird populations and supporting our ranger groups who have actually been working so difficult to secure and build varieties of these unique birds.”
Visitors to the location are being recommended to prevent troubling any of the birds at Long Nanny by keeping a safe range from the nest and keeping dogs on a brief lead at all times.
