Bempton Cliffs: Fears for Yorkshire's seabirds as more are added to the red list

Now Leach’s Storm-petrel, Common Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Arctic Tern and Great Skua have been added to the list, joining the five threatened seabird species which already feature – the Kittiwake, Herring Gull, Roseate Tern, Arctic Skua and Puffin.

To assess the seabird species, experts used data collected during the last national seabird census, published in November, alongside data from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and Joint Nature Conservation Committee’s (JNCC) seabird monitoring programme.

They also used a recent survey led by the RSPB to investigate the impacts of bird flu as a critical part of the evidence for some species.

The concerns about bird flu led to the cancellation of trips to the Farne Islands, amid fears that the Puffin colonies could be wiped out.

And last year Bempton Cliffs RSPB reported an outbreak of bird flu on July 18, specifying that the virus appeared to be affecting Kittiwakes.

In a statement at the time, the reserve said: "The Kittiwakes (and many other species) will leave our cliffs in the coming weeks; quite a few young have fledged. While it is worrying, the birds affected are in a localised area. It is hoped that the majority of the birds will leave the cliffs before the impact worsens."

This year the virus has not appeared, to the relief of many, as from March to October the cliffs at Bempton come alive with nest-building adults and young chicks, including Puffins, Gannets and Guillemots, forming one of the UK's top wildlife spectacles.

But the red list update, carried out by a coalition of the UK’s leading bird conservation organisations and published in the journal British Birds on Monday, follows the recent assessment of 28 seabird species.

Apart from two species found to be no longer breeding in the UK, the seabirds were categorised as red, amber or green-listed depending on how threatened they were considered to be.

The five additions brings the total number of species on the red list to 73 of 245 regularly occurring bird species in the UK – equating to 30 per cent.

The charity said the UK remains an internationally important place for breeding seabird populations, which face a growing list of threats and pressures, including climate change impacts, overfishing, entanglement in fishing gear, invasive predators and offshore renewable energy development in important foraging zones.

Katie-jo Luxton, global conservation director for the RSPB said: “This latest health check on our seabird populations reveals devastating declines in the overall status of the UK’s breeding seabirds.

“As an island nation it is perhaps not surprising that we are globally important for seabird populations but what has really shocked us is the sheer number of our seabird species now on the red list.

“We need urgent action from our governments to address this dire situation to tackle the drivers of these declines and enable recovery.”