The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has created a great story map about their recent work on Project Puffin. In this story map, RSPB details their efforts to understand recent population declines in the Antlantic puffin using remote download GPS trackers and citizen scientist photographers to monitor foraging patterns and diet across two colonies in Scotland.  

The tracking work from 34 individual puffins showed that one colony was traveling much farther than the other to forage, and the “Puffarazzi” contribution (over 1,000 images of Puffins with fish in their bills) showed that this same colony’s quality of food was much lower as well.

RSPB conservation scientist Dr. Ellie Owen is working on analysis of this data now, which will hopefully help the team understand more precisely why populations are declining, and lead to effective conervation measures being put in place.  

Take a couple of minutes to scroll through this engaging story map to see the work for yourself! Here's a screenshot of one of their frames showing how much farther one colony had to travel for food: