Are Puffins Socialist?

Are Puffins Socialist?
I may have studied environmental politics while an undergraduate, but this really was not the sort of question I expected to have answer at work on Skomer Island. But it actually raises some interesting questions about the social life of the seabirds for which Skomer is famous. Let me explain.

The question of the political tendencies of Puffins came about after a Skype call to my girlfriend. I mentioned the upcoming Bank Holiday on May 5th and said it probably had its date set by the Christian calendar somewhere in the past. I was immediately scolded for my lack of knowledge and was told that the May 1st break is traditionally a celebration of the worker. In her native Denmark people will be gathering in parks and enjoying the warmth of the spring air and a few beers, communally singing The International while stroking their goatees and comparing notes on the ethical credentials of their coffees and organic t-shirts. Ok I may have made some of the last bits up and there’s no way the Danish are wandering around in t-shirts at this time of year.

This raised the question of whether I would be celebrating this most socialist of public holidays on Skomer Island. As I stumbled for a witty answer to buy time to eventually make myself look clever, it dawned on me that island life was rather socialist. Now I’m not talking about factory working, propaganda consuming, 20th century socialism as portrayed in the decidedly un-socialist media. Instead it’s more communitarian. On the island we work together, we fit our personal agendas around jobs that need to be done for the common good. For example we needed to take delivery of 10 big gas bottles and had to collect them in our small boat from the mainland. Gas is our cooking and heating source. We all use it. We all need it. So my to-do list for the day was immediately scrapped, as were those of four other people, because the common need to sort out our gas supply was more important.

As I was expounding on my rather dry theory of island driven socialism, my girlfriend asked me if I thought the Puffins are socialist too (see there was a link there all along, thanks for sticking with me this far). The Puffins seem very social. They gather in big groups at this time of year on the water before wheeling around the small bays of Skomer and eventually landing next to their familial burrows. But then they split into pairs and will draw blood fighting over the best burrow sites. They seem quite socialist on the outside but quickly decide that property is everything. Not quite socialist then, more like New Labour.

Meanwhile our Guillemots gather in huge numbers at certain well ledged cliffs. They spend April trying to synchronise their hormones so that they generally mate and then lay eggs around the same time. On their exposed nest sites, their only protection from egg thieving crows and gulls is safety in numbers. Their combined noise, alarms and a thousand sharp beaks are the defence against one egg being taken. This seems very socialist to me. All working together for the common good of their species. They even have a one-child policy, only laying one egg each season.

In general the natural world is socialist to me. Different species have a range of survival strategies but the overall result is always that the individual comes second to the good of the species. Darwinist theory supports this; an individual that dies due to ill health, migratory mistakes or inability to feed will not breed and will not pass on its genes to the next generation. Therefore only the strong survive and the species benefits. Survival of the fittest.

The only species that seems to operate outside this rule is humankind. Our moral conscience, perhaps the most distinguishing feature of our species, has seemingly set us on a different course from the rest of the animal kingdom. However I strongly believe that humans should never take too much of an anthropocentric view of the world. We are nothing without the environment that created us. We as much part of it as a bumblebee, whale or guillemot. It is not there for us to use and abuse as we see fit. Don’t know what I’m on about ?(I don’t blame you, I’m not sure I do either), then come and visit Skomer and see some of the species that call this island home. If learning about their incredible life cycles doesn’t put you in your place on this planet, then there’s no hope for you.