Why Are People Throwing Baby Puffins off Cliffs in Iceland?

“I’m about to throw this baby puffin off a cliff,” says a charming Icelandic woman named Asa Steinars. She smiles at the camera, then she does it. Her video then shows a bunch of people, including children, throwing baby puffins off cliffs. Why, though?

Short answer: Pufflings leave their nests in late summer, but city lights confuse some of the birds and, instead of heading to sea, they end up in human civilization. Locals collect the lost pufflings and then release them—by tossing them off cliffs (don’t worry, the pufflings can fly).

“It’s Puffling season . . . in Vestmannaeyjar,” Steinars says. “We stayed up late and joined the locals in the search of Pufflings. It felt like they were raining from the sky, [a] few of them just dropped down right in front of us.”

Steinars explains in her video caption that hunger drives the pufflings from their nests, and they rely on the moon to navigate out to sea.

“[Some pufflings] confuse the city lights with the moon and end up crashing into town where they don’t have much chance to make it to the ocean on their own,” she adds. “They are at risk due to car traffic, cats or even just end up starving. So that’s where the locals come to the rescue.”

Since this happens every year, Steinars says it’s become an annual tradition for the locals of Vestmannaeyjar, which is an archipelago off Iceland’s south coast.

Watch people toss baby puffins off cliffs here:

“I’m about to throw this baby puffin off a cliff,” says a charming Icelandic woman named Asa Steinars. She smiles at the camera, then she does it. Her video then shows a bunch of people, including children, throwing baby puffins off cliffs. Why, though?

Short answer: Pufflings leave their nests in late summer, but city lights confuse some of the birds and, instead of heading to sea, they end up in human civilization. Locals collect the lost pufflings and then release them—by tossing them off cliffs (don’t worry, the pufflings can fly).

“It’s Puffling season . . . in Vestmannaeyjar,” Steinars says. “We stayed up late and joined the locals in the search of Pufflings. It felt like they were raining from the sky, [a] few of them just dropped down right in front of us.”

Steinars explains in her video caption that hunger drives the pufflings from their nests, and they rely on the moon to navigate out to sea.

“[Some pufflings] confuse the city lights with the moon and end up crashing into town where they don’t have much chance to make it to the ocean on their own,” she adds. “They are at risk due to car traffic, cats or even just end up starving. So that’s where the locals come to the rescue.”

Since this happens every year, Steinars says it’s become an annual tradition for the locals of Vestmannaeyjar, which is an archipelago off Iceland’s south coast.

Watch people toss baby puffins off cliffs here: