BirdLife Malta’s EU-funded LIFE PanPuffinus! project aims to protect two endemic and threatened Mediterranean seabirds, the Yelkouan Shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan) and the Balearic Shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus), through a unique transboundary collaboration for joint large-scale conservation efforts.

After successfully running four seabird-focused LIFE projects, BirdLife Malta has joined forces with its BirdLife partners from another four countries (France, Greece, Portugal, Spain), as well as Malta’s Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, and Greece’s Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA), for a unique Mediterranean-wide collaboration for the conservation of these two seabird species.
It will tackle two major threats that these seabirds meet throughout their entire life cycle: predation by invasive mammal species on land, and accidental capture by fishing gear (bycatch) at sea.

The €3.45 million project, which has started in 2021 and will run till 2025, is part-financed 60% by the European Union’s LIFE programme. Malta’s contribution of 40% is co-financed by the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Rights. Greece’s contribution is 40% financed by the Green Fund and A.G. Leventis Foundation. France’s contribution is co-financed by Food4Good and Office Français de la Biodiversité.