Some of Skomer Island's many puffins should come to Cardigan
The WTSWW said: "Puffins are listed as vulnerable to extinction on the global red list".
Therefore, since Skomer is so overcrowded, why don't they move around 200, or maybe even the odd 626, to their 38-acre property of Cardigan Island off the coast of Gwbert, near Cardigan. There used to be puffins there in the past; an 1890 Guide Book called them "Welsh parrots."
I now discover that Skomer Island is actually owned by Natural Resources Wales [NRW], that's us Welsh tax payers!! Therefore, it's even more reason to relocate some of the puffins. WTSWW only manage Skomer on our behalf! We are the landlords!
Furthermore, WTSWW receive public funding to count the puffins, which they don't actually own. What, I wonder, do they do for them apart from count them?
Meanwhile, in Anglesey, the RSPB recently received almost a quarter of a million pounds from the Welsh tax-payer for their cafe at South Stack, Holyhead, where there are also puffins. Puffins must be big business!!
At a risk of repeating myself, I stated in your columns recently, that the return of puffins to Cardigan Island would greatly boost the tourist economy for 25 miles radius around Cardigan and create maybe 500 or more jobs in hundreds of little businesses, because they are truly iconic, attractive birds that visitors wish to view and photograph!! Both tourists and locals would be able to do so on beaches and in villages from Newport Pembs to New Quay, if they started breeding again on Cardigan Island, because BIRDS CAN FLY!!!
The Welsh name for the puffin is 'Pal' [with a circumflex over the 'a' to elongate it]. Pal is also the Welsh for 'spade,' hence given to the bird because it uses its wide, colourful beak to dig a burrow for nesting. Maybe they're called 'puffins' in English because they're out of breath after all the hard work!!!???
Yours faithfully,
Lyn Jenkins,
Cardigan
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