Tuesday 25 June 2013

What can I do for puffins?





A visitor made me very happy the other day by asking me a question i had never been asked before (despite in my 4th season on the May with several hundred days of boats bringing thousands of visitors - what can I do for puffins? And it is a good question not easily answered. Puffins on the island have a beautiful, legally protected and well managed island to breed on safely but their main problem come from the fact the seas where they feed during their breeding season and in winter that are less well protected. If you have a safe island to nest but no food in the seas around it you are just giving the birds save places to starve.  Couple this with increasingly frequency of big weather events and higher levels of pollution and plastic wastes in the seas and things could be better for puffins.
The visitors question made me think a bit and below is a list of things that if anyone was interested in doing their bit for puffins (and all the rest of the marine ecosystem) then following all or even just a few of these will help.

1.) - Firstly in general you could change your lifestyle to have less impact on the planet's climate by using less energy, especially carbon. Everyone knows these things but it might mean travelling by either walking and cycling more or using more public transport, disposing of your rubbish more responsibility so that as much as possible is reused or recycled and you could make your own compost rather using peat products. All of these will help to reduce climate change and levels of pollution so improving the health of the oceans.

2.) - More specifically you could look at the RSPB Marine Protection Areas Campaign to have Marine Protection Areas set up for seabirds. This will help to have feeding areas for seabirds protected

3.) -You could also support sustainable fisheries by only eating fish that comes from these. There is more information produced by the Marine Conservation Society Sustainable Fish Guide.

4.) - You could also support a conservation organisation that campaigns for healthier seas, e.g. Marine Conservation Society, Scottish Seabird Centre, and the RSPB.

So would you like future genrations to be able to see puffins on the Isle of May?

Can you do any of these?

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