There are few birds in the Northern Hemisphere as striking and easily recognized as the puffin. With its red-orange, yellow and black beak, bold black and white feathers and constant puppy dog ​​eyes, people travel from all over the world to catch a glimpse of it. But on the south coast of Iceland in August and September, you can not only see cameras snapping pictures of diving birds; you can also see people casually tossing puffin chicks off cliffs in the dark.

This is puffin season, the time of year when puffin chicks (called pufflings) are ready to leave the nest and spend the next few months on the open sea.

But climate change and the conveniences of modern society, such as city lights, are threatening the birds’ survival. When endangered birds are distracted and inadvertently lured inland, some people literally help them by capturing them and throwing the baby birds into the sea in the name of conservation. And biologists are OK with that.

Search and rescue of pufflings

Here’s what happens at this time of year: About six weeks after hatching, a puffin, safely housed in a burrow built by its parents on cliffs near the sea, is ready to leave the nest and fly out to sea, using moonlight as a guide.

But light pollution from cities near their nesting sites can cause puffins to become disoriented, and instead of flying out to sea to fish and recharge, the birds end up flying inland, where they risk dying.

This is where passionate locals and visitors come in. Armed with gloves and boxes, they roam the streets at night in late summer to rescue lost chicks and return them to the sea. They do this by either placing them on the edge of a cliff and waiting for them to grow their wings, or by gently throwing them into the air – by hand – to encourage them to fly.

During puffin season, people of all ages help out. In fact, rescue attempts at this time of year are usually a family affair, says Erpur Snær Hansen, head of ecological research at the South Iceland Nature Centre. Children and parents, especially around the town of Vestmannaeyjabær on the Westman Islands, home to the largest colony of Icelandic puffins, go outside after dark and patrol the streets. During the new moon, most puffins become stranded because there is no moonlight. When human rescuers find lost young birds, they collect them in boxes so they can be transported more easily.

Ideally, Hansen says, those who find a puffin would weigh each one and post the results on the website lundi.is so the organization can track how many wild birds there are each season. But not all participants do that, making it difficult to get accurate numbers for research. His best estimate is that they have been collected in the thousands in recent years.

This is a good thing, he explains, because it means it is a good year for puffins with high puffin numbers.

Why puffin throwing is necessary at all

But why go to all that trouble over a few lost birds? Although puffins are not technically endangered, they face numerous challenges that have prompted environmentally conscious people to step in and help. According to Hansen, the average puffin population in Iceland has declined by 70 percent over the past 30 years.

While light pollution is the most obvious and easy-to-blame problem, it’s rising sea surface temperatures that are reducing the puffin population the most, Hansen explains. Research suggests they’re closely correlated with healthy puffin populations. That is, when sea temperatures rise, the puffin population dwindles. That’s likely because warmer surface temperatures mean fewer fish, particularly fewer sand eels, the puffins’ main food source. And when adult puffins don’t have food, that means no babies, too.

According to Hansen, almost 72 percent of the fluctuations in the puffin population are likely due to changes in sea temperature: a deviation of one degree Celsius up or down from the long-term annual and monthly averages can reduce puffin production by 55 percent.

The problem is compounded by the fact that puffins only lay one egg a year, and only when they are between 3 and 6 years old. This rarity, combined with what Hansen calls a tendency toward reproductive failure, lack of food and late hatching, which also reduces the chicks’ chances of survival, and the legal hunting of the birds in Iceland, are threatening the population. Add to that large groups of puffins that never make it to the sea because they are misled by city lights, and you have a recipe for disaster.

In fact, Hansen has suggested that if all factors continue as they have so far, puffins in South and West Iceland could be a thing of the past in a few decades. On the positive side, the population has increased somewhat in recent years, says Hansen. That’s good news, but it doesn’t mean we can rest easy. Both sea temperatures and bird populations fluctuate, so it’s important to remain vigilant when it comes to protecting the birds. This is especially true during the fledgling season, when puffins are at risk.

No long-term solution

Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many long-term solutions to stop the puffins from getting lost. While light pollution is a major reason why the birds get distracted and tempted to almost certain death, “minimizing the light problem is practically impossible,” says Hansen. For starters, Vestmannaeyjabær, with a population of just over 4,300, is no burgeoning metropolis, but Hansen says that even a single misdirected light is enough to lure the birds in the wrong direction.

There are some studies on whether warm light might have a positive effect, but no concrete evidence. So in the meantime, it’s all hands on deck to keep these little birds alive and healthy – and keep them flying off cliffs like nature intended.