The last "puffin census" in 2008, carried out by National Trust rangers, recorded 36, 835 pairs.
However in Iceland, where the puffin has achieved iconic status among tourists, it is not all bad news.
In the Vestmannaeyjar Islands, the puffin situation became so critical that hunting was banned in 2011 and 2012.
Trinket shops up and down the coast sell puffin shirts, ashtrays and key chains.
From Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit, excerpted with permission from Puffin Books.
But in the last few years, another story has emerged: the puffin colony in the Vestmannaeyjar Islands has collapsed.
Mr Trevithick is remembered for his Camborne road carriage, nick-named the "Puffin Devil", first tested in 1801.
He is remembered for his "Camborne road carriage", nick-named the "Puffin Devil", which made successful passenger-carrying trials in 1801.
Puffin lovers in fact have spawned a retail industry of sorts in Maine.
More distantly, I could make out sociable puffin chirrups: evening gossip from the birds in their nest-spots on the cliff.
Part of the issue with the puffin hunting season is that the birds are now fetching a high price as a culinary delicacy.
Known for crash landings and frantic fluttering on land, the puffin is surprisingly graceful in water and spends most of its year at sea.
The team says its architecture is similar to the dens of modern burrowers, such as the striped hyena, puffin and some rodents.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Dinosaur den diggers discovered
Keith Clarkson, regional reserves manager for the RSPB, said the puffin population was the hardest hit with more than 200 dead birds found.
BBC: Hundreds of dead seabirds washed up on East Yorkshire coast
This place, a nesting ground for the Atlantic puffin, is also at the centre of a long-rumbling border dispute between America and Canada.
The fowl are favorites of birders from Maine to Newfoundland, from Greenland to Ireland to France (the full range of the Atlantic Puffin's habitat).
Puffin fans who want to know more about Project Puffin or keep current with the status of Breton's movie should go to www.projectpuffin.org or www.ganglionfilms.com.
Having finished his puffin homage, Breton views with equanimity the commercial consequences of his decision not to prostitute his product in order to sell it.
There's even a chain of convenience stores called Puffin Stop.
The main island, Hirta, once supported Britain's most remote community, with the inhabitants surviving for centuries on the seabird population, subsistence agriculture and eating dishes such as baked puffin.
Rotten shark and burned sheep's head are staples in Iceland's traditional cuisine, and with the popularity of the movie "March of the Penguins, " I hesitate to add that they also eat smoked puffin.
The English Roses is out now, through Puffin.
BBC: NEWS | Entertainment | Madonna teaches children a lesson
Professor Harris and his team said the findings challenged the previous view that puffin populations on the east and west of Britain remained separate from each other, during both the breeding season and during the winter.
He found it on Seal Island five years ago while visiting his brother, Andre, who was there as a volunteer working with Project Puffin--a nonprofit group seeking to right an environmental wrong perpetrated 100 years ago.
Sales took publisher Puffin completely by surprise.
BBC: Fighting Fantasy series resurrected for 30th anniversary
Though by Breton's reckoning there had been ten documentaries about the birds and Project Puffin already--including shows aired on the National Geographic Channel and the Discovery Channel's Animal Planet--he felt there was more of the story to be told.
That, at any rate, is the belief of the Faeroese hardy and tenacious folk whose favourite delicacy, puffin chicks, can only be procured by dangling on a rope hundreds of feet below a sheer cliff-top and robbing the nests of unfortunate seabirds.
It is a fact of life that if you report that five million limpets died as a result of the Sea Empress oil spill, it will produce less public reaction than the sight of a single puffin looking a bit unsteady on its feet.
BBC: News | UK | West Wales recovering from 'environmental disaster'
应用推荐