How seabirds cross oceans by using their sense of smell

It’S a debate that has preoccupied ornithologists for decades... how do sea birds navigate the world’s vast oceans?

Now scientists experimenting on shearwaters in the Mediterranean have concluded that their sense of smell plays a key role in helping them to find their way.

A team led by oxford university tracked 32 free-ranging Scopoli’s shearwaters off the coast of Menorca, which were split into groups, one of which had its sense of smell inhibited temporarily.

Miniature GPS loggers were attached to the birds and they were tracked as they flew out from the rocky Menorcan coast to forage. However, those with the inhibited sense of smell found it harder to get home.

their orientation improved when approaching the coast, suggesting that birds must consult an ‘olfactory map’ when out of sight of land. the research, in conjunction with barcelona and Pisa universities, is published in the journal Scientific Reports. Study leader oliver Padget, of oxford, said the research meant ‘it will be very difficult in future to argue that olfaction [sense of smell] is not involved in longdistance oceanic navigation in birds’.