The Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) has always been an iconic bird in Jersey with its colourful and comical appearance, which has given it colloquial names such as ‘sea clown’ and ‘sea parrot’.

However these names belie a tough species which spends most of its life braving all that the Atlantic Ocean can throw at it.

A very small number of puffins still breed on the north coast of the Island between Plémont and Grève de Lecq. Just before the Great War an estimated 300 pairs bred, but this number reduced rapidly in the following few years leaving only 20 pairs by 1920. Since then, a slow but inexorable reduction has brought them close to local extinction.

The main threat to puffins is the changes in distribution and numbers of small fish, while ground predators such as rats and domestic or feral cats can also have an adverse impact upon breeding colonies.

Pollution is also a serious hazard and when oil leaked from the Torrey Canyon in 1967, it resulted in the loss of 85% of the French puffin population. Because of their low reproductive rate, puffins can take decades to recover from this kind of incident.

Because the puffin is so widespread, the only realistic conservation measures are sustainable exploitation of the seas, a reduction in incidence of marine pollution, and preventing ground predators reaching nesting colonies.