Starving Atlantic Puffins Get Some Help from Bird Oglers

In an effort to save Atlantic puffins from starvation, the Audubon Society is asking bird oglers to contribute to research in Maine to help find out why their numbers are decreasing.

In Maine, there are about 1,000 pairs of the seabirds, which are famous for their multi-colored beaks. But in the past two years, the number of puffin fledgling chicks has dropped, supposedly because their main food source, herring and hake, are migrating to cooler waters.

And because puffins are among the state's threatened species list, Audubon says, scientists are worried.

Audubon maintains three web cameras on Seal Island, a National Wildlife Refuge in outer Penobscot Bay, which is one of the key puffin habitats in Maine. Volunteers are being asked to watch the puffins feed and answer questions about their feeding behavior, said Steve Kress, director of the National Audubon Society's seabird restoration program.

For example, one goal is to document how much food it takes for puffin chicks to fledge.

From 2007-2011, Kress said that 77 percent of puffin pairs on Seal Island produced fledglings, or birds that are able to fly. Since then, the number declined to 31 percent in 2012 and 10 percent in 2013. While it's too early to tell if things are looking up in 2014, Audubon is not hesitating to step in.

"This is a citizen science project, hoping to advance the science as well as entertain the viewers," Kress told The Associated Press. "There are some questions that can be better answered through lots of people viewing."

With warming temperatures driving herring and hake to cooler waters, puffin fledglings are forced to eat the more abundant butterfish. Unfortunately, these fish are too big for the tiny birds' beaks, and so they starve and die.

Kress said the information gathered by puffin watchers will be included in published papers, and will hopefully lead to a solution to this starvation problem.

Puffins spend most of their lives at sea, but return to land to form breeding colonies during spring and summer, National Geographic reports. After landing on North Atlantic seacoasts, females give birth to a single egg, and both parents take turns incubating it as well as bringing it food when it hatches.

Using their webbed feet, puffins can dive to depths of 200 feet (61 meters), though they usually stay underwater for only 20 or 30 seconds. And though they mostly dwell in the ocean, when they are on land, they can flap their wings up to 400 times per minute and reach speeds up to 55 mph (88 kilometers/hour).