3 cool things about TuftedPuffins

Ross Elliott via Flickr CC

Puffins travel up to 100km (62 miles) to get food for their nestlings...

Kuhnmi via Flickr CC

They can carry more than a dozen small fish in their bills...

Steve Voght via Flickr CC

They can dig burrows up to 15 feet deep to rear their young.

Larry Miller via Flickr CC

And they used to be the most common seabirds in the Salish Sea.

Hard to imagine, right?Steve Ebbert USFWS via Flickr CC

Their decline has been steep.

In Washington there were 23,000 birds in 1980. Peter Davis USFWS via Flickr CC

And just 2,950 in 2009.Peter Davis USFWS via Flickr CC

Possible causes include:

• Oil spills • Reduced prey• Contaminants • Human disturbance • Changing ocean conditions• Entanglement in fishing gear

Ingrid Taylar via Flickr CC

But recovery has begun!

© B. Hoglund

WooHoo!!

Tufted Puffins finally have endangered species protection in Washington.

Thanks to 11 ordinary citizens

Francesco Veronesi via Flickr CC

WooHoo!!

Jason Ahrns via Flickr CC

These 11 people funded a SeaDoc scientist to co-author the Scientific Status Review that made the listing possible.

William Warby via Flickr CC

Now that Tufted Puffins are listed, what’s next?

WDFW will begin recovery efforts.

Peter Davis USFWS via Flickr CC

2050: 0 birds

Now we won’t have to say...

Matt Biddulph via Flickr CC

You can help.

Ross Elliott via Flickr CC

Stand up for a healthy Salish Sea by making a monthly sustaining donation to SeaDoc at seadocsociety.org/donate

Nic McPhee via Flickr CC

Thank you!Jim Pfeiffenberger NPS via Flickr CC

More details on Tufted Puffin listing and recovery in Washington State:

In order to list an animal as Endangered, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife must write a peer-reviewed Scientific Status Review.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission uses this report to guide their listing decision.

Due to budget constraints, WDFW was not able to start this report for Tufted Puffins.

The SeaDoc Society secured private donations to hire scientist and author Dr. Thor Hanson to research and write the Status Review.

The final version of the Status Review was co-authored by Hanson and WDFW’s Gary Wiles.

Facts in this presentation were pulled from the full Scientific Status Review, which is available on the SeaDoc Society

website: http://www.seadocsociety.org/publication/washington-state-

status-report-for-the-tufted-puffin/.

Thanks to

K. and R. McDowell, G. Georges, E. Snyder, R. Lundeen, K. and G. Keeler, A. Azous, R. and P. Henigson, and K. Allen

for making the Tufted Puffin Status Review possible.

And thank you to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for partnering with SeaDoc to get this important work

done.

http://www.seadocsociety.org/donate

Photo credits