Skomer Island Seeks Volunteers to Count Puffins (Full Transcript)
[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Are you bored of doing the same thing day after day? Going to the gym, eating the same four meals and having to talk to the same people? Well what if I told you you could live on this island for free, get a bursary up to 400 quid and travel expenses and all you have to do is just count puffins? The Wildlife Trust that manages Skoma Island off the southwest coast of Wales is looking for volunteers to live on the island for several months and count the puffins that live there. Puffins are listed as vulnerable to extinction on the Global International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List and the count on Skoma Island which happens every year monitors how many birds return in the spring to breed. Last year it reported a record number of 43,626 puffins. That is a lot of counting. Other duties can include monitoring the grey seals depending on the time of the year and welcoming the 25,000 people who visit the island. So, fancy it?
- Skomer Island’s managing Wildlife Trust seeks volunteers to live on the island for months.
- Main task is counting puffins during the annual spring breeding-return census.
- Puffins are classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, so monitoring supports conservation.
- Benefits include free accommodation, up to £400 bursary, and travel expenses.
- Other possible duties: grey seal monitoring and greeting roughly 25,000 visitors per year.
- Last year’s puffin count on the island hit a record 43,626 birds.