Starvation, low weight imperil Atlantic puffins, scientists say
PORTLAND,Maine— The Atlantic puffin population is at risk in the United States, and there are signs the seabirds are in distress in other parts of the world.
In the Gulf of Maine, the seabirds have been dying of starvation and losing body weight, possibly because of shifting fish populations as ocean temperatures rise, according to scientists.
The survival rates of fledglings on Maine’s two largest puffin colonies plunged last summer, and puffins are in declining health at the largest puffin colony in the Gulf, on a Canadian island about 10 miles off eastern Maine. Dozens of emaciated birds were found washed ashore in Massachusetts and Bermuda this past winter, likely victims of starvation.
Whether dead puffins will continue washing up on shore and puffin chick survival rates will stay low remain to be seen. But there are enough signals suggesting that puffins and other seabirds could be in trouble, said Rebecca Holberton, a professor at the University of Maine who has studied puffins .
“It’s our marine canary in a coal mine, if you will,” she said.
The situation has drawn the attention of scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., who are looking at how fish populations can affect the productivity of puffins, as well as Arctic terns.
With its colorful striped beak, pear-shaped body and amusing waddle, the Atlantic puffin is sometimes called the clown of the sea. It’s also held up as a poster child for successful seabird restoration.
An estimated 6 to 8 million puffins live across the North Atlantic, from Maine to northern Russia. But they almost disappeared from Maine after settlers hunted them in the late 1800s for food, eggs and feathers. By 1901, only one pair of puffins nested in Maine, on remote Matinicus Rock.
Steve Kress, director of the National Audubon Society’s seabird restoration program, has worked to restore and maintain the puffin population off the Maine coast for the past 40 years. Puffins spend most of their lives at sea, coming ashore only to breed each spring before returning to the ocean in August. The chicks swim to sea about 40 days after hatching and typically return to the islands after two years.
More than 2,000 of the birds are now in Maine, the vast majority on three islands. But the chick survival rates on the two largest colonies took a dive last summer, possibly because of a lack of herring, their primary food source, Kress said.