| | If you close your eyes and imagine the sea, you will probably hear the cries of seabirds gliding along the coast and out to sea to feed, but OSPAR's 2017 assessment found that they are in trouble. Marine birds are also valuable indicators of ecosystem condition and for these reasons OSPAR assesses their abundance and breeding success.
Week 9 of #FridayOceanFindings looks at the latest assessments for 2 of the fabulous bird species found in the North-East Atlantic - the Thick billed murre and the Lesser black-backed gull.
Populations of Thick-billed murre, the largest living members of the Alcidae, are currently declining, with climate change and its indirect effects as the most likely pressures.
The status of the Lesser black-backed gull is still vulnerable and threatened by climate change, environmental pollution and other anthropogenic stressors, predation, competition, and food limitation.
These assessments are components of OSPAR’s Quality Status Report (QSR) 2023. The QSR will examine the current state of the marine environment and ecosystems, and the human activities benefiting from the marine environment and interacting with it.
We hope you enjoy these reports. Please do contact us with any comments at [email protected] | |
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