Giving Compass' Take:

• Climate change is affecting the Atlantic puffin species because of the increase in temperature. This change is prompting a decline in sand eels, the puffin species' main source of food.

• How can researchers and scientists in the area promote awareness around climate change its effects on animals?

• Read about the proposed changes to how we protect endangered animals.

The cost of climate change may not be immediately visible everywhere to humans, but even tiny shifts in temperature are being felt in big ways when it comes to smaller creatures.

The Atlantic puffin, identifiable by its black-and-white plumage and vibrant orange beak, has been in decline since the 2000s, due in part to warming waters, reports the New York Times in a new profile of avian researchers in Iceland.

And in recent years, it has become one of the most endangered. One of the biggest reasons puffins are at risk, according to the immersive Times story, is due to the increasing scarcity of their favorite food: silvery sand eels. Aevar Petersen, an Icelandic ornithologist not involved with the project, told the New York Times that a one-degree increase in sea temperature brought about by climate change was “the key environmental factor” behind the sand eels’ decline.

The drop in sand eels means that puffins must travel farther for food, which is taxing to the little birds.

As Fayet and her colleagues study the dwindled populations found in various puffin burrows, hunters in Iceland continue to supply the birds to restaurants, where the dish is a popular tourist curiosity.  But if climate change solutions aren’t realized, humans may not be enjoying puffins for long — whether admired in their natural habitat or eaten for supper.

Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Penn State University, recently told the Guardian that climate change is so clearly playing a role in extreme weather, wildfires, and other environmental events that “saying otherwise would be like denying a link between smoking cigarettes and cancer.”

Read the full article about endangered puffins by Joanna Prisco at Global Citizen