Fredericton-Daniel Olikar organized a 33-year-old puffin from the Machias Seal Island in his hands and was in awe that it was a decade bigger than that. It seemed that he was catching the world of knowledge and history in that puff ball of black and white wings.
While researching the Atlantic Puffin Ecology, a bird of the new BRARSV student, university found a bird with a plastic band in 1992. This showed the Tuxedo bird as an intelligent and worldly 33. And there was a girl in it.
The Machias Seal Island, the Grand Manan Island of New Breanswick, is a flat, useless sanctuary for seabards located about 19 km in the south -west of the island, which is at the mouth of the Gulf of Funi. It has about 8,600 reproductive pairs of puffins.
Olikar said that last week his fellow researcher looked at one of the tuxido birds on the island with a faded, green and white plastic band and marked the area where it was seen. Those bands were used by Canada Wildlife Services in the 1970s from around 1995, when they were replaced with a metal.
Around midnight, Olikar and a couple of researchers went to search for boar – nests where puffins rest at night after one day in the sea – looking for old birds.
After searching for some boar, he said that he found the right bird by feeling the band on his feet. Some had metal bands.
He said, “Then I felt one that felt a little different, and it was in the right place that we had marked so I pulled it out and it was the right man,” he said in an interview with the island.
Old bird was curious and when it was taken out, it did not fight much.
Researchers replaced the plastic band with a metal, giving the puffin its new number: JG18. But they do not know its gender yet.
He was catching one of the oldest birds, “very exciting” and “really amazing”, “said Oliker. Most of the puffs in the wild remain in their mid -20s.
“Just to think about how many years he spent on the open ocean. How deep he divers first. It is attractive to think how much this bird has passed, what it has been seen, and the fact that it is still here and is growing a girl. It talks firmly.”
The smooth was a “decent shape”, which was pleasant as surprising because the puffins are struggling with food deficiency this year, he said. He said that there are many eggs, many of which have died and many puffling – children.
“It is very likely that this puffin, being so old, has experience and knows what it is doing. So it is capable of finding a good boar for its partner, himself and eggs, and then capable of producing a girl,” he said. “This is very likely, because he is alive for so long, that he knows which spots can be better for fish.”
Puffins began breeding around four or five, so JG18 probably was probably in more than 25 chickens during its lifetime, even though not all alive, said Olikar.
Nick Lund, a network manager for the American Wildlife Conservation Organization Main Audbone, said that one of the biggest threats to the Atlantic Puffin in the Gulf of Main is climate change.
He said, “The Gulf of Main is the most southern reproductive area for puffins in Atlantic, but the water is heating up very quickly,” he said.
“New fish species are going into warming water, and other fish species – which are traditionally eaten by puffins – going out. Puffin is a major question mark for their continuous existence in the Gulf.”
The International Association for the protection of the International Union lists the puffin as “weak”, which means they face high risk of extinction in the wild.
It is interesting and important to find these “very” old puffins because it provides data that confirms the longevity, a maritime biology professor at New Breanswick University, Heather Major said, who are studying these birds on the Machias Seal Island.
A paper published last year in the Ecology and Evolution Journal said that the adult survival of the puffin has declined over time, which is particularly related because they are an important component of population growth rate.
Puffin is a cool-deepened, northern species in the region that are exposed to some of the hottest water compared to puffins in other areas, he said.
“(Search for JG18) The region has the important information given recently,” he said.
Olikar said that he hopes he could see the puffin for the next few years.
“We don’t yet have to give him a name,” he said.
“Now that he has a new band and we know which man he is in the database, we can come with a name, and perhaps it would be fun to see if he is still around the next few years. And we can call him in his name.”