Jun 16 More Puffins

 

Before embarking onto the puffin and whale watching boat, we listened to a seabird presentation . The Atlantic puffins come here every year for 3-4 months to lay their eggs. They arrive about the same time the capelins do. Capelins are here by the billions. They are the puffins main diet at this time of year. The whales are here for them too. Cod as well. There are about 1 million pairs of puffins in the preserve just out of Witless Bay. It is the second largest puffin rookery in the world. 

The females lay one egg and it is tended by both parents. Lots of perils here. As we approached the island of puffins, at times there would a great number of them suddenly in the air. That seemed to happen everythime an Eagle soared near. Another predator, Great black backed gulls were lurking too. I watched one eat a puffin.

The rookeries can be spotted at a distance since they often appear white from all the bird poop. 

Out on the boat we saw the puffins and also a Humpback whale. It was playing around the boat, maybe curious as to who we were. It made a number of surfaces. We could hear the sound of the whale rising out of the water. This whale had a notch on its dorsal fin so it was easy to identify as the other whale surfacing in the area. Once they had submerged, they was a round area of water that seemed that looked distinct from nearby water. 

The most common bird in the preserve is not a puffin, it's the Storm petril. They are noctural so we never saw one. We did see a number of Murres on the water. On July 2, 1992 Newfound declared a moratorium on cod fishing. The giant processing ships had reduced the cod to a number not deemed sustainable. In June of 2024, the moratorium was lifted with limits in cod. During the moratorium certain seabirds recovered in numbers . Prior to the ban, birds were getting caught in the gill nets at the rate of about 30,000 per year. However, gulls declined in numbers. It is thought that they were thriving on the discard from the cod boats until the boats stopped in 1992. The seabirds got another break back in 1949 when Newfoundland became park of Canada. Canada law does not allow hunting of seabirds except Murres. Prior to that Puffins were being hunted. I understand they are still hunted in Iceland and other areas.

In 2022 during the summer, hundreds of thousands of seabirds died from avian flu. And climate change is affecting them as well. Ocean warming is poor for seabirds since the coldwater fish they hunt are changing their habits due to warming.