NBC BOSTON • May 31, 2022
In Maine, researchers are seeing puffins begin to arrive at islands after what they call an "unsettling" year in 2021. According to Dr. Donald Lyons, director of conservation science for the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute, only a quarter of puffin parents studied by Project Puffin last summer were able to raise chicks that could leave the islands they hatched on. Of those that were able to successfully do that in 2021, Lyons noted the young birds were much thinner than usual. There was "a marine heatwave" in 2021, with the Gulf of Maine breaking records again during another of its hottest years ever. Researchers observed warmer waters deterring forage fish, smaller fish many ocean predators, like puffins, feed on. "It is unsettling, the challenge of climate change is so vast."