MACHIAS SEAL ISLAND, N.B. -- Barely more than a tenth of puffin chicks born on the barren landscape of Machias Seal Island this year survived, and scientists suggest climate change may be to blame.
Researcher Tony Diamond says the survival rate for the chicks on the tiny island, in disputed waters off the coasts of New Brunswick and Maine, has averaged 59 per cent over the last 22 years, but this year was the lowest on record.
"Just 12 per cent of eggs that were laid resulted in a chick fledgling," said Diamond, of the University of New Brunswick. "All the chicks that fledged, or most of them, were in really bad condition. We recorded the lowest weight of fledgling chicks that we have ever seen."
Oddly, the success rate for the chicks was 44 per cent in 2014, and 75 per cent in 2015. In 2013, however, it was 15 per cent.
He said everything was fine this summer until the second week of July, when the food supply seemed to run out.
"Things were OK up to that point, but after that the adults were coming back with very few prey items, small fish, small shrimp," he said.
Machias Seal Island, which has no permanent human residents, was home to about 5,500 breeding pairs of puffins this summer. The puffins, with their black backs, white bellies and orange webbed feet, waddle upright much like a penguin.
"They have this great, brightly coloured bill, a bit like a parrot's beak, that is very spectacular," Diamond said.
He said the puffins get all their food at sea, and only land on remote islands to breed.
Diamond said the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99 per cent of the world's oceans and that's going to have all kinds of affects on a cold water system.
Aside from puffins, Machias Seal Island is also a breeding ground for razorbills, common murres, Arctic terns, common terns and more.
Diamond said those species seemed to do well this summer, as well as other smaller colonies of puffins in the gulf.
He said the smaller colonies may have done better because of less competition for food.
The Gulf of Maine spans more than 93,000 square kilometres of water, and is characterized by powerful tides which mix the influx of North Atlantic waters with fresh waters from 60 rivers which drain a large watershed spanning much of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well as Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
It is home to over 3,000 marine species and birds.
Diamond says puffins often live more than 30 years, so it's difficult to say what effect a couple of bad years will have on the future population.
"Things are not looking good for the population, but it is a long-lived animal so it will probably some time before we see an impact on the actual breeding population size," said Diamond.
