British trophy hunters are flocking to Iceland to shoot up to 100 puffins at a time - before bringing the carcasses back home.
The hunting trips to the peaceful Nordic country are being sold for £3,000 a piece, despite puffins being classified as an vulnerable species last year.
In a bid to catch the public's attention, the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting published photos of the hunters posing with dozens of their lifeless trophies.
The group has also issued a plea to Theresa Villiers , the new Environment Secretary, to ban the import of hunted puffins, the Metro reports .
The campaign's spokesman, Eduardo Goncalves, urged the Government to impose a moratorium "before it's too late".
He added: "Puffins are one of the best-loved birds in the world . People travel the world to photograph them. Now it seems trophy hunters travel the world to shoot them too.
"Scientists say they are in serious trouble. Populations are falling, and far fewer are coming to Britain’s shorelines. The last thing they need is for trophy hunters to shoot them in huge numbers just for fun."
Goncalves also called on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to classify puffins as a protected species at its conference next month.
The population of Icelandic puffins has has plummeted from seven million to 5.4 million in a decade.
And Fair Isle, in the Shetlands, has seen its population of the iconic birds halve - from 20,000 to 10,000 - in the last 30 years.
Nearly 600,000 puffins live in the UK, representing roughly a tenth of the world population.
Sir Roger Gale, the chairman of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, blasted the puffin-hunting, describing it as "abhorrent" .
He told the Telegraph : "I don’t believe in trophy hunting at all for any species. I don’t think there is any excuse for it.
"I believe there is much more tourism to be generated by preservation and conservation rather than by killing puffins."
