Action to save our seabirds is needed now more than ever with five new species added to the Red List

Image: Artic Tern, Louise Greenhorn, RSPB Images

The latest assessment of the state of the UK’s seabirds paints a very grim picture. It comes on top of the already dire results of the most recent seabird census, which showed that 62% of UK seabird species are declining, and our 2024 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) report, which revealed the devastating impact of the disease on UK seabirds.  

The updated Birds of Conservation Concern (BoCC) seabird assessment comes at a crucial moment as our seabirds and our planet face escalating challenges. For seabirds, climate change impacts, predation, lack of food, bycatch in fishing gear and poorly planned offshore wind developments are some of the main drivers of their declines. In addition, seabirds are the only one of 15 indicators moving away from target under the Government’s UK Marine Strategy. The results of this assessment provide a stark wake-up call to the severity of the crisis these iconic species are facing in the UK and England, as well as the vital need to tackle it with the utmost urgency.  

BoCC allocates species into one of three lists: Red, Amber or Green, depending on their level of conservation concern. These assessments have a long history, with the first published in 1996. The latest seabird assessment uses data collected during the last seabird census, Seabirds Count (2015-2021), which was published in November 2023, and data from the Seabird Monitoring Programme. In a second phase, it also analysed data contained in the HPAI Seabird Survey Report.  

Great Skua, Paul Turner RSPB Images

The results are catastrophic, revealing the largest ever increase in the number of seabirds on the Red List, which is the highest level of conservation concern. Alarmingly, almost 40% of breeding seabirds are now on that list, meaning it has increased 10-fold since 1996. Fifty-four percent are on the Amber List and two species (8%) appear on the Green List.   

Arctic Tern, Leach’s Storm-petrel, Common Gull and Great Black-backed Gull have joined other seabird species such as Puffin and Kittiwake on the Red List due to severe population declines driven by multiple threats. In addition, HPAI has had a devastating impact on several other seabird species and has led to Great Skua also being added to the Red List.  

The updated BoCC seabird assessment reflects the devastating seabird declines found in both the latest census and the HPAI project and shows that the need for critical resilience-building actions from the Westminster Government is more urgent than ever.   

The UK is home to internationally important seabird populations. England itself hosts over 22% of the global population of Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 7-19% of the global population of Herring Gulls and 6% of the global population of Sandwich Terns, as well as being home to approximately 20% of the UK populations of the now Red-listed Arctic Tern and Great Black-backed Gull. We have a far-reaching responsibility to do everything we can to protect these and other iconic species and contribute to their UK-wide and international recovery. 

Image: Great black-backed Gull, Ben Andrews RSPB Images 

The time to act is now 

The closure of the sandeel fishery in English waters of the North Sea is a crucial resilience-building measure for our seabirds, but it will take time for the impact of this decision to be felt and that will only happen if it is upheld in the face of the ongoing EU challenge. With this decision, the UK Government demonstrated that it can and is willing to take decisive action for seabirds. Sadly, it is far from being the only action needed and it must provide momentum for progressing other critical steps to secure seabird recovery and achieve healthy seas.  

Crucially, we need to see rapid delivery of the actions outlined in the England Seabird Conservation and Recovery Pathway (ESCaRP) through adequately funded and timebound measures. ESCaRP contains an ambitious and much-welcome series of recommendations to restore England’s seabirds. The report was published in February of this year, but we have not seen tangible progress towards its implementation and this needs to change. 

Great Skua, Paul Turner RSPB Images 

Other key actions needed to save our seabirds include: 

1. Improve food availability: Uphold the decision to close the sandeel fishery and expand the closure to all English waters, ensuring appropriate monitoring is implemented to measure compliance and effectiveness, and adopt an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management to protect seabird prey species and meet the objectives of the Fisheries Act 2020. 
2. Tackle fisheries bycatch: Introduce effective measures to minimise and where possible eliminate seabird deaths from bycatch (incidental capture in fishing gear), through effective mitigation and the mandatory roll out of Remote Electronic Monitoring with cameras onboard all vessels operating within English Bycatch is estimated to kill thousands of seabirds across UK waters each year.
3. Tackle and prevent predation: Deliver a rolling programme of island restoration with effective biosecurity for England’s seabird islands, protect mainland ground-nesting seabirds from predation across England, and adopt a swift and effective solution that will enable vital island eradication and biosecurity work to continue alongside the wider ban on second generation anticoagulant rodenticide use in open areas.
4. Address coastal habitat loss and disturbance at breeding colonies: Introduce measures focused on habitat management, restoration and creation to mitigate against predicted losses and provide new safe nesting areas for marine birds, and take action to address the disturbance of wildlife resulting from an increase in coastal recreation and tourism.
5. Improve our protected areas network: Urgently implement a marine SPA sufficiency review at the UK level and designate Lundy Island and its waters as a Special Protection Area. This will safeguard English seabirds such as Atlantic Puffin and Manx Shearwater, of which Lundy is the biggest breeding colony in England, and protect the UK’s only Globally Critically Endangered bird, the Balearic Shearwater, which relies on these waters during the winter months.
6. Ensure strategic, holistic and truly spatial marine planning: This should be led by government, providing clarity for marine users across the breadth of UK seas, identifying functionally linked areas for seabirds and enabling activities, including development, to take place alongside the achievement of Good Environmental Status.

Birds of Conservation Concern is produced in partnership with British Trust for Ornithology, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (NI), NatureScot and Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.