Maine puffins are recovering within the face of local weather change
EASTERN EGG ROCK, Maine — On distant islands off the Maine coast, a novel fowl held its personal this yr within the face of local weather change.
Atlantic puffins — clownish seabirds with colourful payments and waddling gaits — had their second consecutive rebound yr for fledging chicks after struggling a catastrophic 2021, based on scientists who monitor the birds. The information flies within the face of environmental traits, as scientists have mentioned warming waters off New England jeopardize the birds as a result of that reduces the sort of fish they should feed their chicks.
One fish, although — the sand lance — has remained in abundance this yr, permitting puffins to thrive, mentioned Don Lyons, director of conservation science at Nationwide Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute in Bremen. He mentioned it’s an indication the impression of local weather change on ecosystems will not be at all times as tidy as we expect.
The encouraging information comes because the Audubon Society is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary of tending to Maine’s puffin colonies, which it restored from only a few dozen pairs. There at the moment are as many as 3,000 birds, and the inhabitants is steady, Lyons mentioned.
“This yr is an efficient instance of how complicated issues are. We will’t boil it down to 1 variable,” he mentioned. “We nonetheless have lots to study.”
The puffins — also called “clowns of the ocean” or “sea parrots” — nest in burrows and feed their chicks small fish resembling herring. Two years in the past, the colonies suffered certainly one of their worst years for replica in many years on account of a scarcity of these fish. Solely a couple of quarter of the birds had been capable of increase chicks that summer time.
Audubon and different conservation teams have tied the fish scarcity to warming ocean temperatures. The Gulf of Maine, which has puffin colonies on its islands, is warming quicker than a lot of the world’s oceans, and a few current years have been particularly heat. The early a part of this summer time seems to have been “nonetheless unusually heat,” mentioned David Reidmiller, local weather heart director at Gulf of Maine Analysis Institute in Portland.
About two-thirds of the puffins fledged chicks final yr, Lyons mentioned. The birds didn’t equal that quantity this yr, he mentioned, however they once more had a greater yr than 2021 regardless of a lower than very best summer time of sizzling, wet situations.
The puffins’ skill to breed regardless of environmental modifications speaks to the resiliency of seabirds, mentioned Invoice Sydeman, president and chief scientist of the Farallon Institute, a marine preservation group primarily based in California. Nonetheless, the long-term risks posed by local weather change — resembling deadly warmth waves, lack of meals, lack of islands to sea degree rise and incapacity to breed — stay existential threats to puffins and plenty of different seabirds, he mentioned.
“The issue with local weather change is these breeding failures and low breeding productiveness years at the moment are turning into continual,” Sydeman mentioned. “There shall be fewer younger birds within the inhabitants which are capable of recruit into the breeding inhabitants.”
Maine puffins are the one breeding Atlantic puffins within the U.S. Worldwide, the species lives within the North Atlantic from Maine and Canada to Europe. Different international locations with massive puffin populations, resembling Iceland, have seen the birds decline in quantity in current many years.
Maine puffins as soon as dwindled to solely about 70 pairs on tiny Matinicus Rock.
Hunters who pursued the birds for his or her meat and feathers had practically wiped them out by the early 1900s. Stephen Kress, an Audubon ornithologist, sought to develop puffin colonies beginning within the Seventies by relocating chicks from Canada to Japanese Egg Rock, one other tiny island.
Right this moment, Maine puffins reside on Matinicus in addition to Japanese Egg Rock, Seal Island and Petit Manan Island. On a current journey to Japanese Egg Rock, positioned off St. George, dozens of puffins delighted tour boats as they took off in flight and dove into the water in pursuit of fish.
The grownup Maine puffins within the colonies seem pretty strong, and it’s “doubtless the inhabitants is steady, and it may nonetheless be rising,” Lyons mentioned.
The results of local weather change on seabirds have been a spotlight of scientific inquiry lately. Curiosity within the topic has accelerated due to die-offs of among the puffin’s auk household family members, resembling frequent murres and Cassin’s auklets off the West Coast.
The challenges confronted by seabirds make profitable breeding seasons particularly necessary, mentioned P. Dee Boersma, a College of Washington professor of biology and director of the college’s Heart for Ecosystem Sentinels.
“What which means is we ought to be extra cautious and anxious about reproductive failures and issues like that to ensure that in good years everybody that wishes to has an opportunity to breed, and do nicely,” Boersma mentioned.
Story by Patrick Whittle.
