Fewer Puffins Return to Maine, Indicating Greater Issues at Hand

Puffins have once again returned to several Maine islands and, unlike last year, are finding plenty of food for their young chicks, though scientists are not necessarily taking that as a good sign.

Young puffins died at an alarming rate last summer as a result of a herring shortage, which in turn led adults to try to feed their offspring fish that were too big to swallow: some chicks were found dead surrounded by piles of uneaten fish, according to the Associated Press.

However, despite the plentitude of food, researchers are still worrying over the bird's welfare given that their numbers seem to be dwindling, as seen in the fact that roughly a third of the burrows at the nation's two largest colonies are unoccupied, according to Steve Kress, director of the National Audobon Society's seabird restoration program and professor at Cornell University.

This likely means many birds died over the winter and others were too weak to produce offspring this season, he said, according to the AP.

Maine's puffins were nearly wiped out a century ago after they were over-hunted for their feathers as well as meat. By 1900, the bird nearly disappeared altogether from the Gulf of Maine except for two isolated colonies.

Forty years ago, Kress and his team of researchers launched a recolonization effort called the Puffin Project in which they transplanted chicks from Newfoundland to man-made burrows in remote Easter Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay and later to other Maine islands. Puffins, however, tend to be less adaptable than other seabirds, leaving them vulnerable to environmental changes.

Going forward, Kress admits that, despite his and others' efforts, there's no guarantee that there won't be more die-offs of the fragile creature, as seen in areas such as Norway and Scotland's Shetland Islands.

"It could happen here. We will learn. The puffins will teach us about the oceans and what's happening to them," Kress said.