Predation

Predation

A reason that tufted puffins are particularly vulnerable to predation is that the tufted puffin is a diurnal species, meaning that they are active during the day and they sleep at night. This makes them extremely prone to daytime visual predators that overlap with their habitat, particularly bald eagles and peregrine falcons. These avian predators keep the tufted puffins from entering their burrows and feeding their young, thus decreasing their fledgling success, as the tufted puffin is a skittish bird species that is easily scared away by the presence of predators. Thus, the recent increase in bald eagle

Image Credit: Infinite Unknown

numbers in the Pacific Northwest is of major concern to the conservation of the tufted puffin and may be implicated as a possible cause for the decline of the tufted puffin population. As can be seen in the graph, bald eagle numbers started increasing around 1978-1982, which is the same time period in which the tufted puffin numbers started drastically decreasing meaning the graph suggests that it's possible that the rebound of the bald eagle population is a cause of, or at the very least shows a correlation to, the decline of the tufted puffin population over the same time period. In addition to this, a study on Shumagin Island in Alaska found that up to 30% of bald eagle diets there consisted of tufted puffins (Moe 1977). This would seem like a lot of evidence in favor of the bald eagle as a major cause of tufted puffin decline, but the concern with the possibility of the bald eagle being a significant cause of population decreases in tufted puffins is that the bald eagle itself is a species that is considered an amazing example of successful conservation efforts to recover an endangered species. It was only recently taken off the endangered or threatened species list in 2009 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2013). Due to this, and the public's positive perception of the bald eagle as a national symbol, it may be hard to focus recovery efforts for the tufted puffin on eliminating bald eagles as a threat, or it may have to be done in a more creative fashion. However, just because it seems like it may be a hard task does not mean that it should be given up on, The tufted puffin is also a species that deserves to be able to survive and thrive in the Pacific Northwest.

Original figure. A graph of bald eagle population numbers vs tufted puffin population numbers in Washington and Oregon created using the Audubon Christmas Bird Count Data for the bald eagle portion of the graph (the black line), the exact population numbers going from 1 bald eagle counted in 1920 to 2,348 counted in 2010, with the blue line showing tufted puffin numbers over the same period of time, the data courtesy of Hokum 2014. The tufted puffin numbers go from about 26,000 counted in 1909 to only about 3,100 counted in 2009.