Puffins die off in large numbers

As many as 130,000 puffins, 15 per cent of the population, may have died this past winter In Norway.

A normal winter casualty rate would be five per cent.

The high number of deaths is most likely due to a lack of food. An explanation researchers offered earlier was that the birds could have come into contact with the tentacles of giant jellyfish, and had their sight destroyed. Current evidence tends to discredit this hypothesis, according to the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.

The total number of nesting puffins has declined by two million since 1979. The puffin accounts for one quarter of all seabirds in Norway.