Nineteen tufted puffins found on St. Paul Island in Alaska in October 2016. (Courtesy of Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Ecosystem Conservation Office)For months beginning in October 2016, carcasses of tufted puffins turned up one after another on the shores of St. Paul Island, a tiny Alaskan outpost in the southern Bering Sea. They just keep washing in and washing in,” said Lauren Divine, director of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Ecosystem Conservation Office, who helped oversee the birds’ collection. In fact, 2018 marked the third year in a row that scientists documented “massive” seabird die-offs in the Bering Sea region, according to the National Park Service. The reality, she said, isn’t so simple when it comes to figuring out all the forces shaping a complex ecosystem such as the Bering Sea.

Source: Washington Post May 29, 2019 18:20 UTC