First record of horned puffin in the North Atlantic and tufted puffin in High Arctic Greenland

An accelerating decrease in summer sea-ice extent in the Arctic Ocean and Canadian Arctic Archipelago (North-west Passage) is predicted to increase the movement of species between the North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans. Here we report observations of two Subarctic North Pacific puffin species i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar Research
Main Authors: Burnham, Kurt K., Burnham, Jennifer L., Johnson, Jeff A., Konkel, Bridger W., Stephens, Jack, Badgett, Hannah
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Norwegian Polar Institute 2020
Subjects:
Transarctic movement
sea ice
North-west Passage
range shift
Fratercula corniculate
Fratercula cirrhata
Arctic
Arctic Ocean
Canadian Arctic Archipelago
Greenland
Pacific
Arctic Archipelago
Atlantic puffin
fratercula
North Atlantic
North West Passage
Polar Research
Sea ice
Subarctic
Online Access:https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/4458
https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v39.4458
Description
Summary:An accelerating decrease in summer sea-ice extent in the Arctic Ocean and Canadian Arctic Archipelago (North-west Passage) is predicted to increase the movement of species between the North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans. Here we report observations of two Subarctic North Pacific puffin species in the North Atlantic near the coast of north-west Greenland. We observed a horned puffin (Fratercula corniculata) repeatedly during the summer months of 2002–06 and 2013–19 and a single tufted puffin (F. cirrhata) in 2019. While single tufted puffins have been observed a few times in the North Atlantic, this is the first record of a horned puffin in the North Atlantic, and the first record for both horned and tufted puffins in north-west Greenland. In 2019, both puffin species were observed simultaneously at an Atlantic puffin (F. arctica) colony.

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