Seabird Restoration Research

Seabird restoration is a new science that has been developed through the work of Project Puffin and other research groups. Project Puffin was the first effort to ever succeed in restoring a seabird to its native nesting areas. By transplanting puffin chicks from Newfoundland, Steve Kress and others brought Atlantic Puffins back to traditional breeding grounds in Maine where they had been wiped out nearly a century earlier. Five years after the first chicks were brought to Eastern Egg Rock, they began to return as adults to breed on the island once again.

Sarah Carr measures the wing of an Atlantic Puffin

Two researchers weigh a young puffin chick

Seabird restoration and research requires many hours in the field each year. The staff of Project Puffin increases from 6 year round staff members to over 50 in the summer on six islands in the Gulf of Maine.

Interns and volunteers help Project Puffin study seabirds during the breeding seasons. The research ranges from capturing birds and measuring them to sitting in blinds to observe the birds in a fairly undisturbed setting. Many pages of data are taken by researchers that are later used in determinig the effectiveness of restoration efforts. These data also help in generating new ideas for how to help the seabirds.

A researcher patiently and carefully observes nesting seabirds

A research blind surrounded by terns and other nesting birds

Here many birds can be seen on the rocks around the research blind. Project Puffin researchers try to keep their impact on the nesting seabirds to a minimum. By staying in the blinds to observe, they do not disturb birds nesting as close as five feet away.