Mystery of birds’ movements at sea solved
Gareth Brede, Senior Media Officer E-mail: gareth.brede@rspb.org.uk
- New research reveals unprecedented insights into where British and Irish breeding seabirds go when they’re not on land, providing critical information to inform future management of UK seas post-Brexit
- The five year project GPS-tracked over 1300 breeding seabirds of four species from a number of colonies in Britain and Ireland allowing conservationists to predict where seabirds from all of the region’s colonies go to find food
- The new maps will be used to assess potential impacts from offshore wind farms, pollution and other human activities on breeding seabirds, helping to protect these threatened species
Experts have used GPS-tracking and computer models on an unprecedented scale to map where British and Irish breeding seabirds go to feed, revealing unique insights into the distribution of these enigmatic species.
New research, published in a leading science and conservation journal Ecological Applications, used five years of seabird GPS tracking data and powerful computer modelling methods to estimate the areas of sea used by four of Britain and Ireland’s breeding seabird species. This has enabled scientists to predict, for the first time on a national scale, where birds go at sea when they leave their nests on land to find food.
The report can be accessed at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.1591/abstract