Puffins take off from a bird blind on Machias Seal Island, in waters between Cutler and Jonesport in Maine and Grand Manan Island in Canada. Below, a puffin has a fresh catch of herring.
(Photos By Derrick Z. Jackson)
Derrick Z. Jackson
A bird’s-eye view of nature
Puffins take off from a bird blind on Machias Seal Island, in waters between Cutler and Jonesport in Maine and Grand Manan Island in Canada. Below, a puffin has a fresh catch of herring.
(Photos By Derrick Z. Jackson)
PUFFINS ARE the promise of a restored ocean. Loons, apropos of their haunting night call, warn us how fragile our lakes are.
Puffins show what happens when we act decisively on the environment. Loons betray our indecision.
On and off for more than 20 years, I have been following the progress of the Audubon Society’s Project Puffin. In 1973, the project began trying to restore puffins to islands off the coast of Maine, where they were eliminated by human hunters in the 1880s.
It has turned into an inspiring environmental saga. Starting with hand-fed transplanted chicks from Newfoundland, the project now boasts a record 107 pairs on its original site of Eastern Egg Rock and 425 pairs on Seal Island, which was added to the project in 1984.
Two of the Eastern Egg puffins are now 32 years old, just two years younger than the world’s oldest-known living puffin, rediscovered this summer in Scotland.
Loons, for their part, are among the oldest known birds on the planet, period. But age is no guarantee of long-term survival.
On one hand, heightened efforts have helped the loon population remain at stable levels in Maine. And in New Hampshire, the population has risen to what is likely to be a record of about 600 adults, according to the Loon Preservation Committee. But for most of the last five years, the birds, which nest only inches above water in bogs and marshes, have struggled to produce chicks. New Hampshire had a 25 percent increase in chicks this summer, to 160 - but also the second-highest number of flooded nests since 1975. Maine Audubon said its loon chick production will be very low this year, perhaps near its record low of 102. In good years, as many as 300 chicks hatch on the lakes.
This is on top of researchers continuing to find a significant number of loons entangled in carelessly discarded fishing line and poisoned by lead fishing gear, despite growing laws to ban lead in tackle. Loon Preservation Committee senior biologist John Cooley said, “We’ve been having the more frequent, intense rain, which is kind of what the climate-change models predict. The growth in adult loons is encouraging, but you wonder if there is going to be a drop in success.’’
Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com. Visit boston.com/opinion for more photos about the Puffin Project. 
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