![]() To watch the Puffin Cam and hear live sounds from Seal Island, visit: The best hours for viewing are mornings and early afternoon. We need to reduce pollution of our coasts and do a much better job managing our fisheries. Kress said, "We also have the ability to restore and protect colonies. "While humans have hurt puffin numbers in the past," Dr. People are encouraged to see puffins via boat from Muscongus Bay.Īudubon's new Project Puffin Visitors Center in downtown Rockland, ME, allows people to learn more about these captivating "clowns of the sea," and steps you can take to help protect them and our shared oceans. As long as tourists stay on boats at a safe distance and do not disturb the puffins, people can easily enjoy watching a colony during the nesting season. People who get too close may scare off parents from their duties of feeding their chick. Kress is concerned about Project Puffins future "I see no end to the need for interns and other staff on the islands to protect the colonies from intrusions by gulls and humans." Uncontrolled tourism can be harmful to puffin colonies because they need solitude to breed. ![]() ![]() Using one of Kress's techniques, biologists put speakers broadcasting petrel calls at more secure nesting sites and moved petrel young- much as Kress did at Eastern Egg Rock 36 years previously.Ĭlimate Change threatens to flood key puffin colonies and disrupt their food sources along the northern Atlantic rim. The very rare petrel, which breeds in burrows, is threatened by rising sea levels. Last year, endangered Bermuda Petrels nested at a restored colony on Nonsuch Island- the first to nest at this sanctuary in 400 years. The techniques used by Project Puffin have since been used around the world, helping more than 40 other seabird species.īiologists from Bermuda to New Zealand are using Kress's techniques to good effect. Today, about 100 pairs nest at Eastern Egg Rock and more than 375 pairs nest at Seal Island along with Razorbills and nearly 2,000 pairs of Common and Arctic Terns. In 1981, four pairs settled in and produced the first puffin eggs on Eastern Egg Rock in nearly a century. Would these translocated puffins find their way back to Maine?Īfter several years waiting, wooden puffin decoys, mirrors (to convince the puffins they had company), lured a few back. Then they return to the area where they began, and may actually nest near the burrow where they hatched. They remain in the open ocean until they are 2-3 years old. Puffin chicks leave a colony when they fledge and head off to the ocean without their parents. ![]() Kress's hope was that once the puffins were released to the sea, they might return to this island when they matured, to establish a breeding colony. Kress and his team became Puffin Parents, feeding each chick small fish daily. ![]() Upon their arrival, the chicks were placed in individual burrows, and Dr. Each special suitcase held containers for 20 tiny, black and white puffin chicks. Stephen Kress, the Audubon project restored colonies of the colorful seabirds to Eastern Egg Rock and Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge by translocating nearly 2000 puffin chicks from Newfoundland, where the birds are abundant.įor more than a decade, Kress and his team of 'Puffineers' carried chicks by plane, truck, and boat. Atlantic Puffins and other Maine seabirds suffered from intense hunting for their eggs, meat and feathers for nearly 300 years following colonial days. The National Audubon Society started Project Puffin 36 years ago after these charming birds were nearly wiped out in Maine. Project Puffin's 'Puffin Cam' is now beaming live-streaming video and sounds from Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge, eighteen miles off the coast of Rockland, Maine. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |