The summer is coming to an end and this season has been a roller-coaster. After two years of great breeding success in the puffin colonies located in Vestmannaeyjar, this year researchers from Náttúrustofa Suðurlands have found disturbing news. The burrow occupancy of the colonies in Heimaey (main island in Vestmannaeyjar archipelago) was ~70% and the amount of burrows with chicks – pufflings – was ~35%, very low numbers. Many factors might be affecting the breeding season of this iconic seabird. Some of them are low sea surface temperature, lack of available food close to shore, avian flu, among many others. These factors are interconnected and hard to predict, but it seems that this year has not been the greatest for puffins in Vestmannaeyjar, a population in constant decline during the last two decades.
However, not everything is done just yet. Once adult puffins are getting ready to leave the island, it´s time for the pufflings to emerge. Every year, a small proportion of pufflings end up in town and hundreds of puffling patrollers are policing the streets in order to rescue the little ones. A citizen-science initiate has evolved from these dedicated patrollers and you can find more information about it at www.lundi.is . An educational video has been released and you can learn the best way to rescue a puffling, how to handle it and the best way to release it. The bullet points are:
-Wear gloves
-Warm clothes
-A headlight or torch
-Use a cardboard box with grass in the bottom
-Keep pufflings in a quiet and room-temperature place overnight
-Avoid additional stress (not unnecessary handling, photo sessions)
-Release as soon as possible
