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Jonas Hentati Sundberg and his research colleagues have studied the herring guillemots at Stora Karlsö off Gotland for more than 20 years.
– In recent years it has remained very stable and is constantly increasing. But this year the number of cubs dropped dramatically.
The corona pandemic has unexpected consequences
When the tourists were absent, the sea eagles came to the island instead … more and more the longer the season lengthened.
– Eagles do not live on herring guillemots, but they do disturb. A good number of tourists turned out to have been good protection, says Jonas Hentati Sundberg, a researcher and senior lecturer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SLU.
See and hear how the herring pigs did it in the video above.
Sea eagles take over bird paradise
In Gotland, the white-tailed eagle has increased from zero to sixty pairs in the last 20 years.
– A clear result of a successful environmental policy and a reduced number of environmental toxins in nature, says Jonas Hentati Sundberg.
There are about 20,000 pairs of herring guillemots in Stora Karlsö, the largest colony in the Baltic Sea. And researchers do the same every year; Watch when the herring pigs lay eggs, when the eggs hatch, watch the chicks being raised and then annealing and counting the adults to see how many return each year.
– This year there were 25% fewer puppies than in a normal year, says Jonas Hentati Sundberg.
