As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Monday, 12 January 2015

BBC chef Tom Kerridge criticised for eating a puffin

Chef Tom Kerridge was accused of being ‘colder than the weather in Iceland' after eating a puffin


By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor

3:17PM GMT 11 Jan 2015

The BBC ‘Food and Drink’ chef Tom Kerridge has provoked anger after boasting that he ate a puffin in Iceland.

Kerridge, 41, wrote on Twitter that he was on his way to a ‘puffin lunch’ before admitting he had scoffed the seabird, alongside ‘guillemot, whale and horse.’

Puffins have not been having an easy time of it lately.

Last year’s winter storms wiped out up to 25 per cent of populations in Europe in what conservationists dubbed ‘Europe’s worst ever seabird disaster.’

Researchers who monitor the colonies say the birds could not get enough fish to eat after prolonged gale force winds at the start of last year brought in huge Atlantic swells.

Kerridge’s puffin meal was criticised by animal rights charities such as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, (PETA) who said the chef was ‘colder than the weather in Iceland.'

Although puffins are not endangered they are declining rapidly. America is currently considering adding the seabird to its red list and in the UK puffins are protected on the amber list of Birds of Conservation Concern.

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