Puffins, northern gannets, kittiwakes and fulmars are just some of the iconic species of seabird that return to Scotland in their hundreds of thousands each year to breed and which make our seabird cliffs and islands, such an important habitat to champion and protect. Seabirds are an integral part of the marine environment and spend most of their time at sea, but during the breeding season they nest and raise their young on land. Many seabirds breed on sea cliffs and islands, a habitat that ranges from sheer exposed cliff faces and rocky outcrops battered by the oceans to gentler more sheltered slopes of maritime heath and grassland, interspersed by colourful drifts of thrift, sea campion, Scots lovage, lichens and scattered herbs, the vegetation and topography strongly influenced by the maritime climate. Their proximity to the sea and relative inaccessibility make sea cliffs and islands attractive places for seabirds to breed and at the height of the breeding season these places come alive with the sight, sound and smell of many tens and often hundreds of thousands of seabirds nesting cheek by jowl, screeching filling the air, the smell of guano assaulting the senses.
Breeding season in large seabird colonies is an awe-inspiring spectacle, attracting many thousands of visitors to our islands and coastlines every year. Providing valued visitor experiences, supporting well-being, raising awareness and appreciation of our wild nature and the issues that impact it, it also brings valuable tourism income to often fragile coastal economies.
With its long coastline and many islands, its position in the north-west Atlantic, Scotland is one of the more important countries in Europe for this habitat.
Action Needed
- Placing good environmental health for our oceans and coastal habitats at the heart of decision-making when tackling the twin climate and biodiversity crises.
- Continuing commitment to seabird biosecurity by maintaining funding for local biosecurity equipment hubs and ensuring staff are adequately trained, allowing seabird island managers to react timeously to incursions of non-native mammals, such as rats, that can quickly decimate seabird colonies.
- Prioritise islands for removal of non-native invasive species to restore seabird habitats and colonies.
- Promote Scotland’s unique coastline habitats and seabirds to encourage sustainable eco-tourism, stimulating local tourist economies and raising awareness of the need to combat the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss, to visitors.
- Enable and encourage more people from more diverse backgrounds, including children to visit islands and to share the wellbeing benefits of connecting to seabirds, nature and coastal environments.
- Ensure funding and commitment is maintained for the Seabird Conservation Action Plan and that it is implemented in full.
- Continue monitoring and research to better understand the immediate and long-term impacts of climate change and other threats on this important habitat as well as the effect of any conservation interventions. Linked to this would be to continue monitoring and research into the threats to seabirds themselves such as HPAI and offshore wind energy developments, as well as how conservation interventions e.g. closure of the sand eel fishery, have had on seabird populations.
- Set ambitious and legally binding targets for nature recovery now that the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026 has been passed.
Threats
- Habitat loss as a result of climate change. Increasing instances of extreme weather events, erosion, sea level rise and extreme high tides resulting from climate change, all impact this important seabird habitat, leading to habitat loss. Climate change also disrupts the food supply around breeding colonies which further degrades the habitat as a whole.
- Invasive non-native species. Non-native species such as rats, mink, mice or stoats – the latter two of which are native to the Scottish mainland – pose a considerable risk to seabirds, where their range overlaps. Invasive predators predate seabird chicks and eggs, which can have particularly devastating consequences for isolated island seabird colonies, where they have not been present before.
- Human disturbance. The presence of people, where not well managed, can disturb seabird colonies in some cases leading to nests and eggs/chicks being deserted. Seabirds nest in a variety of places including rocky ledges, crevices, burrows and shallow scrapes. Humans and indeed our pets (dogs, cats) can, however inadvertently, severely impact breeding success by getting too close to the birds and their nests by trampling on burrows and nest sites or harming adults and chicks.
The threats given above are for the habitat, but there are many more threats to the seabirds themselves that are interlinked but which are not covered here – Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), climate change affecting the seabirds themselves, fisheries policies and offshore wind energy developments, all of which need to be tackled to make seabird populations more resilient and to allow their numbers to increase.
MSP Nature Champion
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