News releases

The Scottish Seabird Centre teamed up with Caledonian Horticulture's the Scottish Coastal Cleanup and Clean Coast Outer Hebrides on Saturday 2 March for a group beach clean in North Berwick. The aim of the event was to tackle the large amount of litter that’s been deposited on North Berwick’s beaches in the winter storms.

Researchers have found that the Bass Rock gannet colony, the largest Northern gannet colony on the Earth, has reduced by 25-30% since the last major count in 2014. The latest findings were a result of a partnership between the Scottish Seabird Centre, The University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences, and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. The group collected imagery from a state-of-the-art drone, implemented automated counts and combined this data with traditional seabird counting methods to help them understand the impact Avian Flu had on the island’s gannet population.

The Scottish Seabird Centre continues to receive daily calls from concerned members of the public about significant numbers of dead seabirds (mainly auks including guillemots and razorbills) that have been found washed up along the coastline of the Firth of Forth.

Scottish Seabird Centre statement about dead and injured seabirds