Each year hundreds of Atlantic puffin fledglings get stranded in towns near their breeding colonies as they flee the nest. If they’re lucky, volunteer members of the Puffin Patrol, operated by Newfoundland and Labrador’s Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, catch and overnight them and release them to the ocean the next day. 

What’s drawing the fledglings into nearby towns is an attraction to artificial light at night. Dr. Taylor Brown '19 (Traill College), a recent Ph.D. graduate from Trent University’s Environmental & Life Sciences (ENLS) program, published the first study, in the journal Animal Behaviour, to show that puffin fledglings prefer light over darkness. 

“It’s a big issue in Newfoundland and Labrador, where artificial lighting from coastal development, offshore oil and gas operations, fishing vessels, and cruise ships cause a lot of mortality to puffins and other seabird species,” says Dr. Brown. “Upon stranding, they may also get killed by a car, fox, or cat.” 

Understanding fatal attractions

With additional training, logistics, and financial support from Environment and Climate Change Canada - Canadian Wildlife Service, the Toronto Zoo and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Dr. Brown set up field experiments to test puffin fledgling preference for dark or light settings on a beach near the puffins’ breeding colony. 

Through her tests, Dr. Brown drew in 136 birds when the beaches were lit, compared to only two in the dark. The paper also reports findings that puffin fledglings didn’t show a preference for one type of light over another. 

“It’s long been thought anecdotally that these birds are attracted to artificial light, but Taylor is the first to test and prove this,” says Dr. Gary Burness, Dr. Brown’s thesis supervisor and a professor in the Department of Biology. 

Professor Burness contributed to the study and is a co-author on the paper, along with Kaitlyn Baker, a former undergraduate in Trent’s Biomedical Science program. 

Lighting the path toward species conservation

Notably, the problem of artificial light attraction doesn’t seem to affect the adults.  

“This may be because leaving the nest is pretty much the only nighttime activity a puffin will do in its lifetime,” says Dr. Brown. “Reducing artificial light at night near the puffins’ breeding colony during fledging season could help puffin conservation.” 

Learn more about the Environmental & Life Sciences program at Trent University.