Scientists race to understand why tufted puffins are disappearing from the Pacific Northwest
Scientists think fewer than 2,000 tufted puffins remain on the West Coast.
THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA — The R/V Puffin sliced through uncharacteristically calm waters near Smith Island, a lopsided pancake of land often buffeted by wind and waves at the end of the strait.Just after a July sunrise, four researchers on the boat eyed a cracked and collapsing bluff, the home to about 25 breeding pairs of the tufted puffin, a bird in mysterious decline here.“You are looking at the largest remaining colony of tufted puffins in the Salish Sea,” said Peter Hodum, a professor with the University of Puget Sound.In Washington, the tufted puffin has seen a 90% reduction in population in recent decades with fewer than 2,000 of the birds remaining on the West Coast. The bird isn’t at risk for extinction (over a million still live in Alaska), but when Washington listed the species as endangered in 2015, the agency wrote that with the current rate of decline, the state’s population could be gone by 2055.The reasons for the tufted puffins’ decline in the Northwest isn’t fully understood. Researchers here are seeking answers before it might be too late to bring these populations back from the brink.Surprisingly, another species of Salish Sea puffin, one known for its austere and stocky appearance, might hold some clues. Around 14 miles away from this cliffside, the rhinoceros auklet breeds on a larger island — and is flourishing. Tens of thousands of burrows dot the seaside cliffs, and each summer fierce-eyed rhinoceros auklets — which are a puffin despite the name — flock to them, said Scott Pearson, a senior research scientist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.The divergent paths of the rhinoceros auklet and the tufted puffin are part of the mystery that scientists Pearson and Hodum have tried to prod in their research and talks.Combinations of factors related to the birds’ well-being are likely at play. Both are in a subgroup of the alcid or auk family of seabirds. Both birds raise a single egg each year. They dive deep into the ocean to forage for fish, but the tufted puffin has a more limited diet, locally, and is much more skittish and sensitive to human interference.For Hodum and Pearson, their comparative study of the two species could shed light on what exactly is driving the tufted puffins’ decline.They also fear that one day the rhinoceros auklet will follow the path of the tufted puffin. Warming seas and ocean acidification threaten fish and the diet of both birds. The marine environment is changing, perhaps too fast for either bird to adapt, Hodum said.“They’re telling us and showing us what’s going on. Are we really paying attention?” he said.The tufted puffinEach spring, tufted puffins journey from the vast Pacific Ocean to breed at colonies along the West Coast, Alaska, Siberia and Japan.Ahead of the journey, the otherwise drab gray seabirds transform. Their faces whiten, highlighting giant, ridged, bright orange bills. Blond plumes erupt from their heads, giving the species its clownlike appearance.Once returned to their colonies, the birds stretch and yawn at each other. Thought to bond with the same mate year after year around the same burrow, the tufted puffins’ courtship rituals include clapping bills against each other and showing each other nesting material.In Washington, 44 tufted puffin colonies were once found throughout the San Juan Islands, the outer coast of the Olympic Peninsula and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In the late 1970s, researchers estimated around 23,000 birds lived among these sites. Today, the colonies on the San Juan Islands are empty, and just 19 breeding sites remain in the state.According to recent research, the tufted puffin population is in decline across California, the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf of Alaska, around three-quarters of the bird’s North American range. The species is also declining in Japan, though over a million birds are estimated to be holding steady or growing in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.In 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to list the tufted puffin as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, citing that while the bird’s range is contracting, the species is still “widely distributed” and “maintains high overall abundance.”Race for answersFor the scientists surveying puffins along Smith Island, the race is on. Hodum and Pearson have theories as to what is driving the tufted puffins’ decline locally — fewer fish, more bald eagles, contaminants in the water, humans leading them to abandon their burrows. But until the scientists pin down what’s driving the decline, most conservation efforts are an experiment, Hodum said.At the top of the cliff at Smith Island, the scientists have placed a handful of tufted puffin decoys, which they hope will attract more birds into mating. It’s a conservation technique that helped recover the widely recognized Atlantic puffin on the East Coast.Recently, the scientists have been thinking about which islands in Washington might be the best place to reintroduce tufted puffins to boost their survival, Pearson said. One possibility could include the scientists placing tufted puffin chicks that were born in captivity in burrows when they are just ready to leave and venture into the world for the first time. After living on sea for three or four years, the scientists would hope they would return to breed.The cliffs are eroding at Smith Island, and over 20 years ago, the last of its lighthouse fell into the water. Today, rusted electricity cables that jut out and dangle from the cliff face and a weathered white home and two radio towers with eagle nests serve as landmarks for the scientists when identifying burrows. (Strangely, one or possibly two errant horned puffins also visit Smith each summer.)Although Smith Island is the largest tufted puffin colony in the Salish Sea, it’s not the only one. At least one active burrow remains on another nearby island, where the rhinoceros auklets live in abundance.A seabird sanctuaryKneeling in a bed of cheatgrass, Hodum snaked a black cable attached to an infrared camera several feet into a dark hole in the ground deeper than his shoulders.On Hodum’s headset screen, a barely recognizable gray blob came into view. To an untrained eye, it almost looked like a rock until it started to move, a beady black eye and beak coming into relief. Suddenly, the gray blob morphed into a fuzzy baby bird — a rhinoceros auklet chick the size of a small grapefruit.The chick is oblivious to the camera. Its parents are likely out on the open water, foraging or bobbing on the surface. Long after the late summer sun has set, the parents, alongside thousands of other rhinoceros auklets, will descend upon this island in the dark with neat rows of sand lance and other fish stacked in their beaks.Just a few miles off Sequim, and 14 miles south of the tufted puffins of Smith Island, lies Protection Island. It’s a wildlife refuge over seven times the size of Smith Island and largely untouched by people. On top of the island, deer hop through nonnative pasture grasses. Lazy seals and their pups lounge and mottled seagull chicks waddle along the shore at the primitive marina.Like Smith Island, Protection Island is closed to the public, but it almost wasn’t that way. In the 1970s the island was narrowly saved from the jaws of development when The Nature Conservancy and environmental activists, citing the island’s importance to nesting seabirds, successfully fought off the development of 800 vacation homes.Now scientists travel up the island’s steep slopes in a white Jeep on dirt roads, which were originally bulldozed when the island was first being prospected. A land frozen in time, water pipes stick up in the middle of fields, connected to nowhere, a reminder of what the island almost became.The few structures on the island include one private residence and a U.S. Fish and Wildlife caretaker’s cabin. The night before, the scientists stayed up past midnight on the island to study the diets of the rhinoceros auklets, who (unlike the tufted puffins) return to their pufflings at night.Thanks to this conservation, the island’s greatest real estate asset is perhaps its habitat, which includes nearly 55,000 burrows on steep grassy slopes. The burrowing birds (which include pigeon guillemots) have dug them with their beaks and feet — sometimes with branches — to be several feet deep. Research estimates that the island hosts around 35,000 breeding pairs of rhinoceros auklets each summer, making it the third largest colony for its species in North America.Pearson and Hodum have a few ideas on why the rhinoceros auklet, which is evolutionarily the oldest puffin species, might have fared well in recent decades. They deliver food to their chicks under the cover of night, away from bald eagles. Their chicks need less food less frequently compared with the tufted puffin, and they eat a wider range of fish.The rhinoceros auklet is also just a hardier bird. Researchers have netted rhinoceros auklets, held them in hand, clawing and biting, and stuck GPS and satellite trackers on them with little issue, Hodum said. Some research indicates tufted puffins will abandon their burrows after they are caught and tagged. Human disturbance is likely part of the reason tufted puffins fled the San Juan Islands, Pearson said.An uneasy futureOn Protection Island, just two tufted puffin burrows remain and at least one of them has been active recently, and the researchers keep their distance. It’s a far cry from the dozens of tufted puffins that were observed in the 1970s and 1980s, and it’s quite possible that this colony could be lost too in the “next few years,” Hodum said.Pearson said the privilege of visiting Protection and Smith islands up close as a researcher isn’t lost on him, and there’s a reason the islands are closed. Rhinoceros auklet burrows are fragile and prone to collapsing if stepped on. There are also black oystercatcher eggs on the beach and other species that rely on the absence of people to thrive.The scientists are careful to modify their methods for each puffin species, and to date, a burrow has never failed because of their work, Pearson said.“If there were a lot of people on this island, people bringing their dogs or whatever, we would lose the (puffins). Birds can’t handle that level of human activity,” he said.If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
