(The same decline has not been seen in breeding locations in Alaska.) Fish and Wildlife Service in 2020 after a very broad, range-wide estimate along the Pacific Rim that deemed the population is showing “stable or increasing trends.” However, tufted puffins in the southern region, namely the Pacific Northwest and California, have rapidly disappeared over a short amount of time. The seabirds were not granted federal protection (which bald eagles enjoyed for most of the 20th century) by the U.S. Meanwhile, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife added them to that state’s endangered species list in 2015, and it maintains a recovery plan for the birds. Stephensen also warns that people should not use drones around Haystack Rock during breeding season: the puffins perceive drones as predators, and their defense mechanisms kick in, sometimes prompting them to leave their pufflings alone in the nest and vulnerable to actual predators.ĭespite the steep drop in population, Oregon has not listed tufted puffins as an endangered species. Researchers say the decline may be related to multiple causes, including habitat loss, climate change and changes in marine food systems, oil spills, and increased predation by bald eagles. I mean, it is a slight increase,” says Stephensen. “I would refer to that more as being stable. But that’s still a far cry from what it was back in the 1980s, and not exactly a recovery. Those 2008 numbers have increased to 553 statewide, according to the 2021 survey. Fish and Wildlife Service set off alarm bells with a count of just 142 birds for the entire Oregon coast-a dramatic decline from 1988, where the count averaged around 5,000. In 2008, a tufted puffin survey conducted by the U.S. We have plans to put transmitters on some birds so we can track their movements, but that hasn't occurred yet,” says Stephensen, who is based at the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Newport and has been studying tufted puffins for nearly 15 years. “We don't know exactly where they go during winter. Fish and Wildlife Service, to conduct research. Indicate no significant relationship between mass growth rate and SST.The mating season provides a short window of time for wildlife biologists, like Shawn Stephensen of the U.S. Significantly with SST during the linear growth period, and dashed lines Solid lines indicate the years in which mass growth rate correlated SST, and black indicates no linear change in SST over the nestling period. SST (see Methods), blue indicates a significant seasonal decrease in Indicates years in which we detected a significant seasonal linear increase in
Spline function (λ= 1,000) was fit to the data for each year. Period across all years in which we have nestling growth data (11 years). ( C) The pattern of changing SST during the nestling Late-season decline in SST coincided with a late-season increase in nestling With an associated increase in SST during that same period (open circles). Nestling mass growth rate (filled circles) declined over the season Nestling mass growth rate in 1981. ( B) The negative correlation between SST and ( A) Interannual changes in nestling mass growth rate as a function Further and prolonged increases in ocean temperature could make Triangle Island, which contains the largest tufted puffin colony in Canada, unsuitable as a breeding site for this species. Puffins may partially compensate for within-season changes associated with SST by adjusting their breeding phenology, yet our data also suggest that they are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change at this site and may serve as a valuable indicator of biological change in the North Pacific. Especially warm SSTs corresponded with drastically decreased growth rates and fledging success of puffin nestlings. Based on 16 years of reproductive data collected between 19, we show that the extreme variation in reproductive performance exhibited by tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) was related to changes in SST both within and among seasons.
Off the coast of British Columbia, warm SSTs have persisted through the last two decades. As global temperatures continue to rise, it will be critically important to be able to predict the effects of such changes on species' abundance, distribution, and ecological relationships so as to identify vulnerable populations. Such oscillations could precipitate changes in a variety of oceanic processes to affect marine species worldwide. Anomalously warm sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) are associated with interannual and decadal variability as well as with long-term climate changes indicative of global warming.
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