Alarm as waterbird numbers slump to historic low heraldscotland.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from heraldscotland.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Want to read more?
At the start of the pandemic in March we took the decision to make online access to our news free of charge by taking down our paywall. At a time where accurate information about Covid-19 was vital to our community, this was the right decision – even though it meant a drop in our income. In order to help safeguard the future of our journalism, the time has now come to reinstate our paywall, However,
rest assured that access to all Covid related news will still remain free.
To access all other news will require a subscription, as it did pre-pandemic. The good news is that for the whole of December we will be running a special discounted offer to get 3 months access for the price of one month. Thank you for supporting us during this incredibly challenging time.
Parasitic jaeger / Arctic skua / parasitic skua (Stercorarius parasiticus) flying over tundra. (Photo by: Arterra/UIG via Getty Images). ONE of Scotland’s rarest seabirds requires urgent action to halt its decline, according to a new report published yesterday. Arctic skuas are known as the “pirates of the seabird world” because they steal their food from other birds. The birds, which breed only in Scotland in the UK, take advantage of the diving skills of other seabirds to catch small fish such as sandeels, before giving chase and forcing the pursued bird to drop its meal. The State of the UK’s Birds 2020 (SUKB) report shows the species, which breeds in the far north of Scotland and Northern Isles, has suffered an 80% decline since 1986 and a 30% decline in the last decade.