Project Puffin

Puffins had not lived in Maine for over 100 years. A group of scientists and students studied why an
Puffins Comes Back

First listen to what the characters below have to tell you. Then click on the link below to hear the sounds of an Atlantic Puffin. Press play on the audio sound bar. When you are finished listening hit the back button on your tool bar to return to this page.

http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=022M-W1CDR0001420-0200V0.xml#

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Puffins are excellent swimmers that use their wings to stroke underwater with a flying motion. They steer with webbed feet that swirl like a rudder . They dive to depths of 200 feet though they usually stay underwater for only 20 or 30 seconds. Puffins typically hunt small fish like herring or sand eels. In the air, puffins are great flyers.By flapping their wings up to 400 times per minute they can reach speeds of 55 miles an hour.

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Puffin Newborn

Puffins had not lived in Maine for over 100 years. A group of scientists and students studied why and found that people killed the birds and eat their eggs for food. In the early 1970's the scientists, with the help of the Canadian Wildlife Service, collected just hatched puffin eggs and took them to Maine to start a new colony .

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Puffin Checks Out Decoy
The students learned how to be parents to the puffins. They built nests and fed the baby birds fish by hand. When the puffins grew old enough to leave, the students built decoy puffins so the birds would see other puffins when they were flying in the sky. The first returning puffin was in 1977. It was identified by the band on it's leg.  In 1981 a puffin was spotted bringing fish to a nest. This showed that the puffins were nesting on the same island where they grew up.
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Since the project had been such a great success, Dr.Kress did the same thing on a different island in Maine. The puffins mated  and again he had success. In 1994, 152 puffins were spotted in Maine. 

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Now there are more colonies on different islands along Maine's coast and it is less likely that all the colonies will be destroyed again. Dr. Stephen Kress and 150 students had made Maine a safer place for the puffins to live. Recently the United States National Wildlife Preserve had to start protecting the puffin from seagulls. Seagulls have been stealing puffin eggs for food. Some people feel when the protection goes away, so will the puffins.  Finish this story by writing what do you think will happen to the puffins in the future? Pedro, Emma, and Money will provide additional questions and thoughts that you should include.

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Sources

1) Myers, Jack. Why The Puffins Came Back to Egg Rock. Highlights for Children Inc. http://www.highlightskids.com/Science/Stories/SS0695_puffinscameBack.asp

2) Birdforum.net

3) The British Public Library http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=022M-W1CDR0001420-0200V0.xml

  Britch Library Statement: The British Library has digitised these collections of recordings and made them available purely for the purposes of safeguarding them and for making them available for non-commercial research, study and private enjoyment. The collections include culturally sensitive materials, among them ethnographic sound recordings. These recordings should not be altered or used in ways that might be derogatory to the indigenous and local communities.

 

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