Light pollution confuses and disorients seabirds around the globe, luring them towards land — and potentially dangerous situations.
In the Westman Islands off the southwest coast of Iceland, however, one community has banded together to save lost young puffins.
Every spring, hundreds of thousands of Atlantic puffins come to the archipelago to breed.
Mere meters from the nearby town, they dig burrows in the cliffs and raise their young, known as “pufflings.” Biologists Erpur Snaer Hansen and Lucas Canas study the newest residents of the local puffin population, but they’ve noticed a concerning pattern.
When it is time for pufflings to leave the burrow, thousands of them are drawn by the lights of the town rather than flying out to sea.
Once on the ground, they become trapped and risk starvation. In response, the community goes on “puffling patrol” every night during puffling season.
They scour the streets for lost pufflings and bring them to the Puffin Rescue Center, where Kim Cupples and her team perform a health check.
The townspeople bring healthy pufflings back to the cliffs of the island and use a unique method to return them to safety: throwing them out to sea.
This article was first published by PBS on 4 August 2025.
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