New tool will revolutionise puffin census efforts - National Trust for Scotland

The Trust has partnered with EOLAS Insight (a consultancy in unique geospatial solutions for organisations that use maps) and partners at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences to develop an innovative new puffin census tool.

This new technology is an AI-enabled ‘virtual fieldwork platform’ designed to transform how ecologists monitor seabird populations, starting with Scotland’s iconic and vulnerable puffins. The project has been made possible by being awarded £560k by the Scottish Government’s CivTech Accelerator programme, the Scottish Marine Environmental Enhancement Fund (SMEEF) and the Trust.

Puffins are increasingly at risk of extinction due to several factors, including climate change and human activity, making monitoring their numbers crucial for conservation. However, undertaking accurate monitoring poses a challenge for ecologists as puffins nest in underground burrows and often live in remote, inaccessible colonies, making them notoriously difficult to count. Traditional counting methods are labour-intensive, invasive, and often imprecise – just 11% of all UK colonies that were counted as part of the latest national population survey were classed as having used a method accurate enough to determine whether there has been a change in the population size over time.

To tackle this challenge, project lead EOLAS Insight is building an innovative platform that integrates ultra-high-resolution aerial data, state-of-the-art 3D models of colonies (known as ‘digital twins’), and AI-powered detection tools to help ecologists map puffin burrows and identify signs of nesting inside. The result will be a scalable and efficient approach to seabird monitoring, enabling more accurate, wide-scale data collection without the need to walk among the burrows found in fragile habitats.