How Newfoundland puffins assisted in saving the bird’s population in Maine

The Atlantic puffin population in Maine is relatively steady today. But as just recently as the 1970s, hunting had actually made the seabird almost non-existent in the state.

Only 70 approximately sets survived on Matinicus Rock at the time, approximately 40 kilometres off the Maine coast.

“They utilized to breed on a minimum of 5 other islands in Maine, however had actually not recolonized any of those islands by themselves in about 100 years,” said Steve Kress, previous executive director of the Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute.

Kress, who initially came across the seabirds on Machias Seal Island in New Brunswick, partnered with the non-profit National Audubon Society to launch Project Puffin on July 4, 1973 — simply over 50 years back.

Over the next years and a half, they transferred almost 2,000 puffin chicks from Newfoundland to 2 historical breeding websites on Maine: Eastern Egg Rock Island and Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge.

“The concept was to hope that young puffins might be moved when they’re simply a couple of days old and they might be moved from a big nest to a historical website,” Kress informed The Current visitor host Robyn Bresnahan.

ENJOY: Atlantic puffins loafing in Maine

50 years later on, on the task’s anniversary, their efforts are settling. The puffin population in Maine has actually increased significantly because 1973 — and they’re even colonizing brand-new parts of the state, according to Don Lyons, director of Conservation Science at Audubon’s Seabird Institute.

“They’re well on their method through the breeding season,” he informed Bresnahan. “They’ve been breeding eggs and lots of have actually had those eggs hatch into the young chicks.”

Acting on an inkling

When Kress began the task, he said there were “considerable spaces” in the clinical understanding of puffins, such as what age they breed.

What was understood, however, was that puffins might remember their hatching location — and they typically returned there when they were old adequate to breed.

That got Kress thinking: if puffin chicks were transferred from Newfoundland to Maine, would they keep in mind the websites on Maine where they were dropped off as their brand-new breeding place?

“That was simply an inkling … however I believed it deserved a shot,” he said.

Kress feared the very first time he saw the puffin population in Canada.

“For somebody who was simply impressed to see even a single puffin, to go to Newfoundland where there was, like, numerous countless puffins in nests was simply remarkable,” he said.

But the transport included a great deal of experimentation.

“We needed to create every action of the method since no one had actually begun a puffin nest previously — or any sort of seabird nest prior to,” he said.

Kress said they were at first transferred in hollow juice cans within wood boxes, with burlap doors to provide as much ventilation as possible. Up to 200 chicks were flown on a personal jet to Maine each round.

The next action was building burrows to enable the puffins to breed. It took numerous trials, however by the task’s 3rd year, “we developed an outstanding burrow — developed out of sod, L-shaped like a natural burrow,” he said.

Once that was done, the waiting begun. The very first puffin went back to the moving location within 4 years. The very first bird bring fish was found in 1981, “which suggested that we had a chick,” Kress said.

Social tourist attraction

At one point, Kress was worried by the absence of puffins going back to the moving location. So to fight this, Kress originated a brand-new preservation technique utilizing social tourist attraction — based upon the concept that puffins choose to nest in groups.

“Maybe these puffins were simply worried about coming ashore,” he said. “Maybe they were flying neighboring however not seeing other puffins, [so] they would simply venture on other puffin nests.”

To motivate puffin migration to the Maine release websites, Kress and his team installed 2 kinds of decoys created to appear like puffins.

The concept was that if a passing puffin that was all set to nest saw the decoys, they would be more comfy to nest on the release websites.

Kress’s inkling was appropriate, and within a couple of years, there were indications that birds were nesting in the brand-new puffin nest.

Conservation heroes

Biologist Ian Jones says seabirds are amongst the world’s most threatened animals, so preservation efforts like Project Puffin are “remarkably essential” to their survival and to basic clinical understanding.

“If there was a Nobel Prize for bird preservation and even for preservation, you understand, Steve would be a prospect I would choose,” the Memorial University of Newfoundland teacher informed Bresnahan.

Despite their development, Jones said that increasing temperature levels in the eastern Atlantic, “so around the British Isles, Norway, the Faroes and Iceland,” might threaten the puffin population within the next 50 years.

“There’s absolutely some extremely distressing indications that the water is merely getting too hot to support the puffin’s victim and the puffin populations,” he said.

Still, he said the Atlantic puffins are doing reasonably well compared to other seabird types, “therefore that’s cause for hope.”

In the meantime, Audubon continues to keep an eye on Maine’s puffin population, utilizing different publicly-broadcast cameras to study and gain from their practices.

The decoys are likewise still utilized on the islands today, and Lyons said the social tourist attraction preservation method has actually been adjusted by other seabird preservation efforts worldwide.

“A group people, Steve and I with a lot of partners, have actually just recently put together all of the tasks that we have the ability to learn of worldwide,” he said. 

“It’s over 800 efforts that have actually now utilized these strategies of translocation and social tourist attraction, and they have actually benefited around one-third of all the seabird types on the planet.”