80 / ROLLING STONE / APRIL 2020
CLIMATE CRISIS
GRAY WHALE
HABITAT Mainly the Pacific Ocean;
they make a yearly 12,000-mile round-
trip migration from Northern Mexico to
Arctic waters. THREAT Food scarcityATLANTIC PUFFIN
HABITAT Rocky coasts and islands
of the North Atlantic THREAT Food
scarcityThe Atlantic puffin feeds on long,
narrow fish — white hake and herring
are favorites. But a key part of their
habitat, the Gulf of Maine, which
stretches from Cape Cod to Nova
Scotia, is experiencing the warming
effects of climate change at a faster
rate than 99 percent of the global
ocean, sending puffins’ choice fish
into colder, deeper, and more out-
of-reach waters. As a substitute, the
adaptable, foot-tall birds have been
diving for wide, flat butterfish instead.
The problem: Butterfish are too round
for young puffins to swallow, leading
chicks to die of starvation. In 2012,
according to a study by the Audubon
Society, only 31 percent of puffin pairs
successfully raised a chick at Maine’s
largest colony, compared with the typ-
ical 77 percent. “We could certainly be
looking at losing puffins from Maine,”
Delach says. “Sea birds are tremen-
dously susceptible to climate change,
because their dietary patterns are
based on where their prey has always
been, and it’s pretty easy for the prey
to move, but not for the birds to move.
Puffins have a really high site fidelity —
they won’t shift where their colony is.”In 2019, the gray whale experienced
what the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration defined
as an “unusual mortality event.” In
a heartbreaking sight that repeated
along the Pacific coast from Mexico
to Alaska, carcasses of the majestic
creatures washed ashore at four
to five times the typical rate. Many
died emaciated. While the whale
was removed from the endangered
species list in 1994, it is clearly in
peril again. The likely culprit? Global
warming. The spring melting of Arctic
ice releases nutrients that trigger
a plankton bloom. Small animals
such as krill feed on the plankton,
and gray whales, in turn, feed on the
krill, following their feast north with
the retreating ice. In 2018, however,
unexpectedly warm southerly winds
caused ice in the Bering Sea to reach
record lows; insufficient ice, scientists
theorized, depleted the food supply
along the whales’ journey. The situa-
tion is not forecast to improve — the
Arctic has warmed 0.75 C in the past
decade alone, altering migrations for
several species of whale.