‘A real dark situation to be in’: thousands of starving seabirds stranded in biggest ‘wreck’ in a decade

A dead puffin on a beach in Cornwall, where hundreds of starving birds have washed up. Photograph: Andy Cowie/Cornwall Wildlife Trust

The two puffins washed up among seaweed and bits of plastic on a beach in Newquay, Cornwall, on a damp February morning. Normally, these much-loved seabirds pull in crowds of tourists eager to see their courtship rituals, but these were rolling in the surf, dead. Most people walking past probably missed them.

Their breast bones were sticking out, they had no fat on them, and their muscles were wasted; the pair probably starved to death, unable to find enough food out in the Atlantic Ocean where they spend the winter.