A controversial Scottish seabird hunt has had its licence refused for the first time in 400 years, in what campaigners have called a “victory for common sense”. In the annual guga hunt, up to 2,000 gannet chicks are killed over a 10-day period on the uninhabited Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir, 40 miles north of […]
Tag: gannets
“They stick out like a sore thumb.” This clown-like bird has really weird feet – and here’s why
When looking at the planet’s skies and oceans, it is no surprise that Earth has been given the moniker ‘blue planet’. Yet in nature, the colour blue is rare. For example, fewer than 10 per cent of all plants possess blue flowers, while the colour is even rarer among animals – which is why the […]
70% Drop in Levels of Forever Chemicals Observed in Seabird Eggs Tracks Regulatory Success
Content of several “forever chemicals” in seabird eggs were found to have sharply decreased over the last 55 years by a team of scientists. While first rising exponentially from during the 1960s, the chemicals, classed as PFAS, peaked in the 1990s before decreasing in line with regulatory oversight by North American governments. PFAS are a […]
How do diving gannets avoid breaking their necks when entering the water at speeds of nearly 100 km/h?
Plunge-diving gannets hit the water at speeds of up to 86kph – fast enough to do some serious damage if they were a human diver. The bird’s long, slender neck may look like it would buckle on impact, but the muscles are arranged to lock the vertebrae in place before entry. To the extent that […]
Watch hungry gannets performing death-defying, perilous dives at breakneck speeds to catch food – where one small mistake can lead to death
As summer approaches, gannets face a perilous challenge: their primary food source, sardines, migrate far out to sea off the coast of South Africa. When dolphins hunt sardines, their herding drives the fish toward the surface, creating a reachable target for gannets. The birds dive from above, taking advantage of the sardines trapped near the […]