Sick and dead Guillemots (1 Viewer)

[Andy Strachan]

Guillemots dying in 'unprecedented' numbers off the UK coast

Concerns have been raised after reports of 'unprecedented' deaths amongst guillemots in the north of the UK.

www.nhm.ac.uk

At the weekend at the north east coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland I came across two dead guillemots within a mile stretch of beach. I remembered afterwards that I'd read an article like the one above, where guillemots are dying in large numbers, seemingly starving to death and ending up in strange places such as rivers etc. To my eyes, the two I seen didn't look like they'd starved to death. I've seen dead guillemots in the past and just assumed that because they are so numerous you're bound to come across dead ones washed up all the time. But perhaps it's not as common as I thought, I don't know. Apparently it's not common at this time of year, but how common is common?

The article suggests that we should report dead or poorly looking guillemots, so I thought I'd add this article here to raise awareness and see what your thoughts are. Have you noticed an increase in sick or dead guillemots washed up recently?

 

[JTweedie]

They mentioned this on Autumnwatch and suggested starvation, but they admitted research was still ongoing. I've seen seabirds washed up on the east coast of Scotland after storms, but there's been a fair amount of press about the number of dead birds along the coast this year.

 

[PYRTLE]

They have ruled out " Bird Flu " variants and coupled with the huge strands of washed up crab and other shellfish along the whole of the English East coast it is worrying that something is very amiss in the North Sea, yet Herring and whitebait stocks have supposedly increased in recent years.