Alaska scientist blames toxins for 2016 puffin die-off

JUNEAU (AP) – An Anchorage-based scientist says paralytic shellfish poisoning is to blame for the deaths of more than 300 puffins that washed up in the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea last fall. Ecologist Bruce Wright’s opinion is different from most scientists who believe the puffins died of starvation.

Wright, with the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, believes the puffins and the thousands of common murres that died in the Gulf of Alaska in 2015 were affected by the shellfish poisoning.

“My colleagues are reluctant to say the things that I am saying because most scientists feel like...