Sunday, August 14, 2022 -- ATLANTIC PUFFIN TRIP
Eastern Egg Rock is a 7-acre island located in outer Muscongus Bay, perhaps twelve miles from Boothbay Harbor. Highest elevation on the island is seventeen (17) feet. Having done scant preparation for this trip, I was shocked. Tufted Puffins out on St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea were perched on rocks up and down one shoreline that was several hundred feet elevation.
Here in the waters off the mid-coast of Maine, I felt grateful for the chance to see the ATLANTIC PUFFIN. Why? Were they not always here? Yes and No.
In the 1800s, puffins (called water chickens by those who ate them) were hunted for food; they tasted good. Hunted also for their feathers for financial gain (they were great for stuffing pillows), the colony of puffins on the Eastern and Western Egg Islands disappeared by 1887.
And, stayed disappeared from Maine's mid-islands.
How, then, was I able to take a boat trip to see and photograph the Atlantic Puffins just eight to twelve miles offshore from Boothbay Harbor?
Because of a young man that developed a passion for restoring the Atlantic Puffin to its former nesting place, I was now, in 2022, able to visit a viable Atlantic Puffin colony on almost flat rock and the steep boulders of East Egg Island.
Stephen Kress's 1969 invitation to work at the Hog Island Audubon Camp, just off Maine's mid-coast opened his eyes to the fact that the Atlantic Puffins used to nest on the nearby islands. At approximately this same time, efforts were underway in other states to help sustain Osprey, Bald Eagle and Peregrine Falcon populations. Their eggs, too thin due to the toxins of DDT, were harvested, carried to incubators until the chicks were viable enough to be returned to their original nests.
[I was keenly aware of this activity due to Dr. Byrd's work from the College of William & Mary, to go with, and then send his graduate students to climb the trees along fresh-water rivers leading to the Chesapeake Bay, to secure the too-thin-shelled eggs of Osprey, to carry them to an incubator at the College. Once the young hatched, brave students needed to return the hatched young to their parents at the nest. No small endeavor in this taking and returning, I imagine the humans wore hard hats and protective clothing. But it worked!]
While Stephen was showing Audubon campers gull colonies, he began to realize that puffins and terns were missing. Deciding to find a way to restore the puffins to East and West Rock, met with official nixing. The wildlife managers and others that could open the way to restore the puffins held the notion that humans should leave nature to nature; humans should not interfere with nature. Since humans had caused the demise of the former Puffin colony, Stephen felt that humans should now attempt to restore them to their former habitat.
Finally, he met an important and well-connected man who said, "If we let nature do its thing on these islands, the gulls become God." These words from Dr. W. H. Drury, Jr., one of New England's leading seabird experts at the time was also the Research Director at the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Through his connections and time, Stephen was able to get permits to visit puffin sanctuaries in islands farther north. Thus, he needed to collaborate with the Canadian Wildlife Service to visit Newfoundland and its islands.
He was encouraged to re-write his proposal to create a seed colony of puffins from one of the huge northern colonies to Eastern Egg Island. So accustomed to rejection of his proposals and not having received a response for some time, he called for a status check of his revised proposal. Astounded at the fact it had not only been approved but he was permitted to visit the largest colony of puffins in North America on Grand Island in Newfoundland. Plus, his grant application had been approved for $2,700 from Audubon to help with the pilot study.
With little more than his passion, Stephen studied the nests of the puffins living on Grant Island. Many of the nests were dug so deeply, his arm could not reach the bottom! With other wildlife workers and some interns, the Puffin Project had gotten underway.
With hit and miss efforts, the first six (6) chicks carried by workers and volunteers from Grand Island to Eastern Egg Island by plane and truck managed to grow into fledglings. The humans learned from the puffins. They had to make adaptations to be certain that they would survive and fledge. Puffins leaving their nests at nighttime had pushed past a small deterrent for their exit. Thus, the workers knew when one had left for the sea. They scanned the ocean and sometimes found them; sometimes not.
If Stephen thought the process of getting permission for this Project was long and tedious, imagine how he felt about the return (or lack thereof) of his banded Puffins returning to Egg Island. He and his co-workers were now, permitted higher numbers of chicks: 58 and 100 chicks, then 200. These chicks needed to pass quarantine at the border, so a few ended up going to zoos under quarantine. But other than that, all went well with constant monitoring, making adjustments, and adapting learning curves for the human-to-bird relationship. They stopped talking around the nesting birds to prevent socializing the birds with humans.
Puffins normally return to their original birthplace within four to five years. Stephen was not the only one on the lookout. All of his helpers were very invested in the Project and kept a lookout. After five years and no returning puffins, Stephen began to "think like a puffin." He determined to find carvers to create decoys in various positions to set on top and around Eastern Egg Island. Then he added taped sounds of puffin colonies. Next, it was mirrors. He remembered from having a caged bird in the house where he grew up, that the bird loved to look at itself, preen, then look in the mirror again. Four-sided mirrors the size of a large television screen were set up.
Arctic Terns also were encouraged to return. That was a very good move as these Terns hate gulls and became the Gull solution for the Island.
Eight (8)years after the first Atlantic Puffins fledged, one returned. Hallelujah!! Celebration! Can you imagine waiting that long for the result of a program???? Wow!
Then another arrived....and another until 188 pairs of ATLANTIC PUFFIN were nesting at East Egg Rock by 2019.
Thus, I was privileged to see some of these handsome, active, swimmers and divers. You can read the complete story of this first Seabird Restoration Project in a book by Stephen W. Kress titled, THE PUFFIN PLAN (2020).
The plan ended up being a template for wildlife lovers around the world to restore not only seabirds but various species in their own locations.
* * *
