John,

Adorable Atlantic puffins are hanging on by a thread, with a shocking 70% decline over the past five decades. 

The majority of the surviving population nests in Iceland – the only country in the world that cruelly allows these beautiful birds to be hunted for sport. And so thousands of these charismatic birds are slaughtered each year while nesting and raising their baby pufflings. 

Neighbouring countries like Norway have banned puffin hunting – and together we are going to make sure Iceland follows suit.  

Already, tens of thousands of us have taken action to demand an end to this cruel killing. And now we’re ready to ramp up the pressure with a massive public campaign that targets Iceland’s largest industry – tourism – to give decision-makers no choice but to ban puffin hunting. We’re ready to launch smart tactics like polling and targeted ads, but need to raise the funds to make this huge – and keep fighting for animals and nature everywhere.

Can you help?

I'll donate $3I'll donate $4 I'll donate $5I'll donate $9I'll donate another amount

Atlantic puffins spend winters in the open ocean, then nest in spring on cliffs and islands near shallower water. They lay just a single egg per year – and like penguins, parents share responsibility for incubating and feeding their chicks. Once their pufflings are born, parents spend hours out of the sea hunting each day, then return to burrow with their catch each afternoon.

And hunters are pushing these unique creatures to the brink of extinction. A skilled hunter could catch a few hundred puffins in a single day!

But here’s the thing – elections just ended in Iceland, giving us the perfect opportunity to overwhelm the new government with a massive global call to end puffin hunting. And given tourism is its biggest industry, our global movement can show the government that if they don’t ban puffin hunting, they’ll risk a tourism PR nightmare.

If we can quickly raise enough we could:

• Launch a massive lobbying push to convince MPs to get behind a ban on hunting;
• Conduct polling to show that the hunting of puffins will impact tourism;
• Put up ads in Iceland’s airport terminals and ferry ports exposing this cruel practice of killing puffins for sport;
• Run digital ads targeting likely tourists, warning them about the awful hunting practice, and then re-target those ads to strategic MPs so they see what tourists will be seeing.

The Icelandic government is already under increasing pressure from conservationists to review and change its hunting policies as profit-driven tourism accelerates – and together we can be the tipping point to win a ban. Can you chip in to save puffins from extinction – and keep fighting for animals and nature everywhere?

I'll donate $3I'll donate $4 I'll donate $5I'll donate $9I'll donate another amount

Your donation will help power Ekō and our campaigns worldwide fighting for people and the planet.