Biologists Bring Puffins Back to Maine

An Atlantic puffin with a beak crammed with hake makes its way to a burrow to feed its chick, Monday July 9, 2007, on Eastern Egg Rock, Maine. Puffins raise one chick per year. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) (Robert F. Bukaty - AP)

Even worse are laughing gulls that take to the air by the hundreds. "Our hats, backpacks, shoes, shirts are pretty well covered in poop," said Jeff Kimmons, a co-supervisor.

The birds also keep up a 24-hour din of screeches and flapping wings, making it hard for newcomers to sleep in tents sheltered underneath poop-stained tarps.

Puffins are often confused with penguins. They have similar colors, and both swim under water using their wings as fins, but they are not related and live at opposite polar ends of the world. Each puffin pair raises one chick in a burrow under big boulders, taking turns feeding their offspring fish.

The breeding grounds are off limits to the public but several boat tours take nature lovers on cruises that circle the islands.

Last year, Audubon opened a Project Puffin visitor center in Rockland, drawing 10,000 people. Besides boat tours, Project Puffin operates Internet cams that show puffins inside and out of their burrows until the chicks leave by Labor Day.

The project is open ended. If the volunteers left, the puffins would be wiped out again by the gulls.

"Sometimes people say, 'How long are you going to have to do this?'" Kress said. "... In this project, we don't see an end."

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On the Net:

Puffin Project: http://www.projectpuffin.org/