A globetrotting soft toy is helping to spread the word about the plight of puffins.
Spiker the puffin was bought at the Seabird Centre in Bempton Cliffs in 2018 by Ruth Naughton-Doe from Hull:
‘I just thought he was really cute. At that point, I didn’t know much about the real puffins that make their home on the cliffs but when we found out that puffins faced
the same level of extinction threat as the African elephant and lion, and are more endangered than the humpback whale, it just made him more even lovable.’
When she later set off on an epic bike ride round Nepal in South Asia, she decided that not only would she take partner Liam Dobson along but that Spiker should go too.
The 40 day trek culminated in a walk up the world’s highest navigable path – Thorong La Pass which, at 5416 metres high, offers literally breathtaking views of the Annapurna mountain range.
Ruth continued:
‘Nepal is a land locked country so the locals we met weren’t familiar with puffins. In fact, they thought Spiker was a penguin. That gave us a great opportunity to tell them all about puffins, Bempton Cliffs and the Yorkshire coast, and just how much trouble the species is in.’
Ruth recently returned to the award-winning nature reserve to get Spiker a ‘companion’ – as she and Liam are now taking him on a world-wide cycle tour and they didn’t want him to be lonely.
Starting in June, the two couples (people and puffins) will be setting out for France to wind their way across Europe with their sights set on a final destination of India.
And no doubt puffins will again be one of the main topics of conversation on their journey.
very nice story but what about sightings list