Puffin population attracts flocks of enthusiastic fans (Maine)

http://www.bangordailynews.com/news/t/lifestyle.aspx?articleid=149124&zoneid=14

Chances are you may not know that in Maine’s midcoast waters, out where breaking seas shush to the shouting winds, there are several islands that have recovering populations of Atlantic puffins. The significance of that information can’t be appreciated, however, without realizing that by the early 1900s Maine’s midcoast puffin colonies had been reduced to only one breeding pair on Matinicus Rock. Originally, puffins also nested on Eastern Egg Rock, Western Egg Rock, Large Green Island and Seal Island.

Like the depletion of eider ducks — by 1907 only two pairs remained on Maine’s 3,500 miles of ragged coastline — the annihilation of the midcoast puffin colonies was attributed to thoughtless unregulated hunting, for eggs and feathers as well as meat. History has it, however, that the lighthouse keepers on Matinicus Rock protected the surviving pair and their offspring. Thus began the restoration of puffins to the 28-acre rock, where last summer 310 pairs were recorded.

Unfortunately, puffins haven’t returned to all of their former nesting islands. Wildlife biologists specializing in seabird management surmise that puffins attempting to return to the islands were menaced by large populations of unworried gulls, especially the voracious black-backed variety. Obviously, predator control is essential to puffin restoration. For that matter, human activity on nesting islands also must be controlled. Otherwise, disturbance of nests may result in abandonment of eggs and chicks. Eventually, and justifiably, the hunting of puffins was prohibited by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Moreover, in Maine puffins are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Here, then, the question begs: Where did the puffins now nesting on the aforementioned midcoast islands come from? The short answer is Newfoundland. The long answer is the National Audubon Society’s Project Puffin, established in 1973. So it was that wildlife biologist Stephen Kress, director of the society’s Seabird Restoration Program, traveled repeatedly to Newfoundland’s Great Island to capture chicks that gave Project Puffin its wings.

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