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Stop Iceland From Allowing Puffins to Be Killed for Food and Sport

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Sponsor: Free The Ocean

Call for a ban on Atlantic puffin hunting and the commercial sale of puffin meat so nesting colonies have a chance to survive.

Stop Iceland From Allowing Puffins to Be Killed for Food and Sport

Atlantic puffins are one of Iceland’s most recognizable seabirds, but their survival is no longer secure. The species is listed as Vulnerable globally, and BirdLife reports rapid declines across much of its European range.1

Iceland Holds A Global Responsibility

Iceland is home to roughly two million breeding pairs, about 40% of the global Atlantic puffin population. The Atlantic puffin is listed as Critically Endangered on Iceland’s Red List of Birds, while hunting remains legal in the country.2

The Threat Has Expanded

The issue now goes beyond tourists killing birds for sport. Puffins are still hunted in Iceland, and conservation groups have also raised concern about puffin meat being sold to restaurants and tourists while populations remain under stress.3

Climate Change Is Making Survival Harder

Puffins depend on healthy seas and reliable fish supplies to raise their chicks. Recent seabird deaths across Europe show how storms, rough seas, warming waters, and food shortages can hit puffins hard, especially because they are long-lived birds that usually raise only one chick per year.4

Artificial Light Is Putting Chicks At Risk

Young puffins can also be pulled off course by town lights when they leave their burrows for the sea. In Iceland’s Westman Islands, residents rescued more than 3,000 pufflings in 2024 after many became disoriented by infrastructure and lights instead of reaching the ocean safely.5

Iceland Can Act Now

Iceland cannot control every ocean threat facing puffins, but it can stop adding hunting and commercial demand to the pressure. Sign the petition urging Iceland’s Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate to ban Atlantic puffin hunting and the commercial sale of puffin meat.

More on this issue:

  1. BirdLife International, BirdLife International (2026), “Atlantic Puffin Fratercula arctica Species Factsheet.”
  2. Fuglavernd BirdLife Iceland, Fuglavernd BirdLife Iceland (Undated), “Puffins.”
  3. Save Puffins, Save Puffins (Undated), “End the hunting of Atlantic puffins in Iceland.”
  4. Phoebe Weston, The Guardian (4 March 2026), “‘A real dark situation to be in’: thousands of starving seabirds stranded in biggest ‘wreck’ in a decade.”
  5. Marti Trgovich, National Geographic (28 August 2025), “It’s ‘throw a baby puffin off a cliff’ season in Iceland.”

The Petition

Dear Minister Jóhann Páll Jóhannsson,

Atlantic puffins are a treasured part of Iceland’s natural heritage, but they are under serious pressure from climate change, food shortages, extreme weather, artificial light, and continued human exploitation.

The species is listed as Vulnerable globally. In Iceland, Fuglavernd BirdLife Iceland reports that Atlantic puffins are listed as Critically Endangered on the national Red List of Birds.

Iceland holds a major share of the world’s Atlantic puffins. That gives the country a special responsibility to protect the species before further decline becomes harder to reverse.

The original concern about puffin trophy hunting remains serious, but the issue is now broader. Puffins are still legally hunted in Iceland, and puffin meat is still sold commercially, including to visitors. That demand keeps pressure on birds that already face worsening ocean conditions.

Please use your authority to advance a national ban on Atlantic puffin hunting and the commercial sale of puffin meat. At minimum, Iceland should suspend all hunting and sales until independent science shows that puffin populations have recovered enough to withstand any harvest.

Please also support stronger protections for nesting colonies, artificial light reduction near fledgling routes, and public education that encourages visitors to see puffins alive in the wild, not on a plate.

Iceland has the opportunity to lead on seabird protection. Please act now to protect Atlantic puffins before more colonies are lost.

Sincerely,

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