A series of storms since January has resulted in tens of thousands of seabirds being washed in the past few weeks on coastlines across Europe.
As The Guardian reports, experts have described it as the biggest seabird “wreck” in Europe in a decade.
It says that reports have come in across thousands of miles of coastline from southern Portugal to the northern tip of Scotland.
Over 38,000 seabirds have been found stranded along the Atlantic coast since the start of February, it says.
In France, which has the most comprehensive recording system, a total of 32,000 bird strandings have been documented, along with 5,000 in Spain and 1,200 in Portugal.
“Seabird wrecks” is a term used to describe large numbers of dead or exhausted seabirds washing up on coastlines with no obvious cause of mortality.
The newspaper says it is believed the latest dead seabirds – mainly puffins – died of starvation due to stormy weather in the Atlantic, with storms named Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra hammering coastlines.
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSBP) senior marine policy officer Samuel Wrobel says the numbers that have washed up are likely to be “a fraction of those that are still out at sea”.
He believes the death toll this year to date is of a similar scale to 2014, when an estimated 55,000 “wrecked” birds were found on European coastlines, about 94% of which were dead.
The RSPB says the last significant wreck was back in 1983, when 34,000 seabirds were found in British waters - the largest ever recorded at the time.
Wrobel describes it as “a real dark situation to be in, with that number of dead species, and beloved species that are charismatic and icons of our coastline”.
Recovery among puffins will be slow, as these long- lived birds only have one chick a year.
More than 300 puffins had been reported to have washed up on the Cornish coast by the end of February, while guillemots, razorbills and terns have also been recorded.
Climate change means that such storms will increase in frequency and intensity.
Normally, there are 40 to 100 such reports for an entire year, according to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network, which relies on a network of volunteers.
Read The Guardian here
