Life changing

National Lottery players help Project Puffin get off the ground

National Lottery funding is helping the RSPB’s Project Puffin take flight this summer and you’re invited to get involved to help save one of our best-loved seabirds.

Puffins are known as the clowns of the sea thanks to their distinctive colourful bills and eye markings. Every summer these seabirds draw many of us to visit our coasts for the chance of seeing them. However, in recent years puffin numbers across the UK and Europe have plummeted to worryingly low levels.

The RSPB’s Project Puffin is combining citizen science with the latest technology to turn around the fortunes of these charismatic birds. Scientists need to know more about three crucial areas as they try to help puffins: where puffins go to find food, what they feed their chicks, known as pufflings, and how their numbers are changing.

The latest technology is being used to track puffins using GPS trackers from two sites in Scotland. These should reveal where puffins are going out to sea to fish. In Shetland, a puffin census is being undertaken to understand how puffin numbers are changing.

Join the Puffarazzi

You can also play a part in helping puffins by joining the citizen science Puffarazzi. The project needs people visiting puffin colonies across the UK and Ireland in June and July to submit photos of puffins with food in their bills through its website. This will allow scientists to learn more about what these birds are feeding their pufflings.

There are three simple steps to getting involved, including following puffin friendly photography guidelines, find out more here.

Lucy Casot, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund Scotland, said: “Our natural heritage is a most precious resource and, thanks to National Lottery players, HLF grants have helped to protect an amazing range of landscapes, habitats, and species of plants and animals. HLF is delighted to support Project Puffin that will stimulate people’s interest in the natural world and so help them conserve it for future generations.”

The National Lottery has been changing the lives of winners and supporting good causes across the UK since 1994. In that time, there have been more than 7,000 new millionaires created and by playing The National Lottery you raise over £4 million for Good Causes every dayΔ.

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