Seal Island sees record number of breeding puffins

Featured, Maine Monitor

Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson

Elsewhere, there are reminders that seabirds in the Gulf of Maine remain highly vulnerable.

By Derrick Z. Jackson

From a bird blind on Seal Island, I watched as puffins zoomed in from the sea with a rainbow of fish drooping from their beaks.

They carried copper and golden juvenile haddock, redfish and white hake. Others had pink krill from massive upwellings that created magenta blotches just offshore.

Some even carried bright silver herring: juicy fish that were once key prey for puffins in Maine. Atlantic herring are also a prime commodity for humans, who have overfished the species so badly that the fishery in New England has routinely been shut down early in recent years.

To see a number of puffins bringing herring to chicks was a stirring reminder of what the ocean can still offer.

A puffin flying past a boulder with haddock in its beak.
Photos by Derrick Z. Jackson.

Seal Island, which sits 21 miles off Rockland, was once home to the largest Atlantic puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine. It is now managed by the Audubon Seabird Institute, and was the second island that Audubon’s Project Puffin restored puffins to after a century’s absence spurred by hunting in the late 1800s. The first was Eastern Egg Rock, six miles off Pemaquid Point.

Both islands were seeded with puffin chicks brought from Newfoundland. Puffins began breeding anew on Eastern Egg Rock in 1981 and Seal Island in 1992.

RELATED STORY:  Off the coast of Maine, puffins are rebounding and feasting on a new snack

 

A group of puffins. About half the group has begun flying through the air while the other half stands on a boulder while watching the group that is flying.
Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson.

Other birds also did well. Razorbills, a larger cousin of the puffin, established a record 101 active burrows. 

“The weights for the puffin chicks were just so good,” said Faber, 30, the crew supervisor. “Unlike many recent years when there were big shifts or drops in what puffin parents could find, this was a summer where they steadily found fish.” 

That buoyant mood was shared on Matinicus Rock, another island 23 miles from Rockland, also managed by the Seabird Institute. Crew supervisor Tracey Faber, Coco’s sister, said that not only were the puffin chicks doing well, but Arctic tern and common tern nest numbers were up.

Common murres, another bird re-established in Maine after being gone for more than 100 years, fledged a record 16 chicks. 

“We saw some great growth in some birds,” Tracey Faber said.

A puffin with haddock pieces in its beak.
Photos by Derrick Z. Jackson.

But elsewhere there were reminders that seabird islands in the Gulf of Maine are highly vulnerable.

Earlier this month, researchers at the Gulf of Maine Seabird Working Group gathered at a conference hosted by the Seabird Institute in Bremen. 

One topic was the damage caused by last winter’s violent storms, particularly on Petit Manan Island, which sits off a stretch of Downeast coastline that got hammered in January.

Two puffins flying with haddock in the beaks.
Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson.

Island supervisor Amanda McFarland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Linda Welch said the vast majority of natural sod burrows under relatively small rocks and artificial nesting structures were destroyed.

The artificial structures had been built by Welch over the years to entice puffins to breed higher up on the island.

This winter’s obliteration left puffin parents competing for available space, with multiple eggs in the same burrow complex and parents trying to roll unwanted eggs out of the way — puffins hatch and raise only one chick at a time. 

“There was a nest of a 30-year-old nesting pair that was shot down the shoreline 30 feet. We found burrow markers tossed all over the island,” said McFarland. “It was so ironic and sad because the food for the puffins was so good.”

A puffin nuzzles up to another puffin.
Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson.

The island’s puffins saw one of their lowest birth rates in recent years.  

“When I saw the damage, I almost started to cry,” Welch said. “We really need to think more than ever about taking a hard look at climate resilience for seabirds.” 


This story is from The Maine Monitor, whose mission is to deliver fearless, independent, citizen-supported, nonpartisan journalism that informs Mainers about the issues impacting our state and inspires them to take action. Through investigative and in-depth stories, The Maine Monitor engages readers to participate and connect to create a better Maine. Maine Coast TV is a media partner of The Maine Monitor themainemonitor.org.

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