It's tough out there for our sea birds

25 February 2005 07:02

Dead seabirds washing up on Norfolk's coast are evidence that life is getting tougher for the North Sea's natural world.

Shortage of fish to eat, bad weather and climate change are taking their toll among birds such as guillemots and fulmars.

And a coastline survey of bird casualties this weekend will help pinpoint the scale and cause of the problems.

Volunteers will scour 2500km of the UK's during the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' Beached Bird Survey, which has been running for 30 years.

In Norfolk and Suffolk 33 people will cover the entire coastline, said local RSPB spokesman Chris Durdin, who added that the number of guillemots washed up in the Holkham, Hunstanton and Heacham area earlier this month was into double figures.

Oil pollution used to be the biggest enemy, but a combination of legislation and education had cut illegal dumping by ships and incidents were now isolated.

Recent trends showed birds were starving through lack of fish to feed on – the cause of a flurry of fulmar corpses on north Norfolk's beaches last March.

That food chain problem could be a temporary blip caused by bad weather which drives fish deeper, or longer term issues such as climate change. A slight change in sea temperature could have major knock on effects for plankton, fish and birds, he explained.

The food supply was getting “erratic”, said Mr Durdin, and the number of birds was ringing “an alarm bell rather than bells.”

But the RSPB was seeking to deal with issues such as over-fishing through talks with the Government over the new Marine Bill, and continued to lobby about its concerns over climate change.

This year's survey will look for warning signs of further problems for seabirds, following a disastrous breeding season last year, with birds failing to breed and chicks starving to death.

Each year, just under eight million seabirds from 25 species breed on British

shores, while millions more waders, gulls, divers and sea ducks winter around coasts and estuaries.

Although breeding numbers of seabirds have risen steadily over the last 30 years, some species – terns, kittiwakes, arctic skuas and shags - have struggled in recent years.

Mr Durdin said the weekend survey provided useful evidence in the RSPB's quest to protect wildlife, but admitted “it shows that these birds are living on a knife edge.”

Further details of the RSPB's Safeguard our Sealife campaign is available at

www.rspb.org.uk/safeguardoursealife

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