Steve Kress' work in the 70s was phenomenal, transplanting just under a thousand young birds to be reared in burrows to fledge (fledge: fly for the first time) in hopes that they'd eventually return to nest on the islands from which they fledged and breed. It was a huge risk and took a determination unmatched, especially what with knowing the birds go out to sea to unknown locales to basically grow up for several years.
Well over the course of about seven years and with the help of decoys Kress fashioned out of wood, some of the puffins came back after the first four years, interested in these familiar grounds and the decoys which the humans hoped would attract the birds back to explore all the possible the nesting locations. Well, it took seven years but as more puffins came back four pair finally nested on Eastern Egg Rock in 1981.
By the time I made my first voyage out to the Maine islands as a Project Puffin intern (my first time working as a field biologist) the Atlantic Puffin was doing great, in fact they were nesting in the hundreds, spread out on seven Audubon-protected islands where I worked for the two summers of '03 and '05.
Well, now they're in trouble again, vulnerable to the effects of climate change on our oceans. While we know that extreme weather has been something of perhaps a vague but — I believe — real contribution of climate change, it seems this is now reflecting strongly in Project Puffin birds.
What recent extreme weather patterns did was take its toll on the food ability available to puffins raising their young, essentially changing around fish populations, what species were abundant and where they were at essential feeding times during the puffin breeding season. Puffins eat herring and hake (you know, those longer baby fish that dangle neatly from a puffin beak, see here) but in the summer of 2013 biologists were finding puffin chicks starving in their burrows surrounded by butterfish (pictured here) too large for the tiny young to swallow.
The summer of 2013 resulted in only 10% of puffin pairs producing fledglings, this on islands I remember rearing strong, healthy colonies. Reading about all this in the yearly Project Puffin newsletter this winter has broken my heart. And to know that it's happening worldwide is more than a warning, it's a red flag waving, frantically.
Click on my blog page my a photo montage of my Project Puffin Experience.