Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2021

Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V15

The Atlantic Puffin´s breeding population in Iceland

Höfundar / Authors: Erpur Snær Hansen (1), Arnþór Garðarsson (2), Krisján Llliendahl (2)

Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: (1) Náttúrustofa Suðurlands, (2) Háskóli Íslands

Kynnir / Presenter: Erpur Snær Hansen

We reassessed the distribution and abundance of the Atlantic Puffin Fratercula arctica breeding in Iceland, by dividing the 6900 km long coastline into 17 sectors and four neritic regions. The estimation of numbers breeding was based on the product of the size of colony area (from aerial colour photography in early spring), burrow density, and burrow occupancy (BO, eggs/burrow) which was estimated with IR video probes. National mean BO was about 71%. The total number of puffin burrows in Iceland was about 2.8 million (estimated 95% C.l. 2.2-3.3 million), constituting the World´s largest Puffin population and making Puffin the most abundant bird in Iceland. The largest regional concentration of breeders were in the south on Vestmannaeyjar islands (1.1 million burrows), and between 0.5-0.56 million in each of the other three neritic regions (west, north and east). 19 colonies or clusters (Westmans and Breiðifjörður archipelago) have >10.000 breeding pairs and are internationally recognized as Important Bird Areas (IBA), the newest addition being Hrútey in Hrútafjörður.