Dr. Rae [00:00:00]: Okay so I just have to admit, because I grew up in a coastal area on the West Coast I never paid a lot of attention to sea birds because they were just kind of there. They were just kind of around almost like how pigeons are in the big city. You know it was coming into the Wild Kingdom family when I realized oh my gosh I don’t know a lot about this whole group of animals. So it was so great to link up with you Peter because you have been paying attention to this group.
Peter [00:00:25]: Well absolutely because I was raised on the East Coast in the Hudson Valley and this was an area I was familiar with and basically I was returning to parts of the North East coast to see the amazing populations of sea birds that do reside there and still reminding myself that they're only there specific times of the year. And how many months of the year they’re spending at sea feeding off of fish before they can return, nest and lay eggs again.
Peter [00:01:00]: On our show, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, we visited one of the tiny islands off the coast of Maine that’s filled with all sorts of migrating seabirds.
Dr. Rae [00:01:06]: And it’s become a crucial breeding ground for one bird that had nearly disappeared from North America last century– the Atlantic Puffin.
Peter [00:01:15]: I’m wildlife expert and educator, Peter Gros.
Dr. Rae [00:01:17]: I’m wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. And this is Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom The Podcast. Episode 8. The Fight to Save Our Puffins.
Peter [00:01:39] : If you know one thing about puffins, you know this.
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Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild episode clip:
Montage of TV guests: Cute. I can’t think of a better word. Cute. They’re pretty cute.
Dr. Rae [00:01:49]: But don’t let their disarming looks fool you. These little birds are rugged survivors.
TV Guest [00:01:56]: A little puffin can live over 30 years. Puffins can fly about 50 miles an hour. To dive 200 feet, flying faster underwater than fish can swim. When they’re on land they can dig 8 feet or so to create a nesting burrow.
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Dr. Rae [00:02:11]: These days the puffin population is thriving on this island off the coast of Maine. But that population wasn’t always this robust. These adorable birds have really come back largely thanks to Project Puffin– a conservation effort started by Dr. Steve Kress more than 50 years ago.
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Dr. Steve Kress [00:02:30]: The puffin plan that I came up with was to move little puffin chicks, fuzzy little puffin chicks, from a large colony in Canada back to Eastern Egg Rock, and to take the place of their parents to feed them in their little burrows until they were about 6 weeks old. This method, which is now called translocation of chicks, nobody had tried this before.
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Peter [00:02:55]: Eastern Egg Rock is a tiny island which is teeming with all kinds of seabirds from April to August each year. It’s also home to the world’s first restored Atlantic Puffin colony.
Emma [00:03:09]: It is treeless, rocky, perhaps a bit severe looking, but it's a natural home for the seabirds. And they they cover this island in just, a cloud almost, that's constantly moving around and making noise. I had people compare it to the streets of New York City. It's really an island that never sleeps.
Dr. Rae [00:03:37]: But Emma Lachancee Linklater did, in fact, sleep there. Last summer she and some other field biologists monitored the daily lives of these birds – tracking the puffins’ daily habits, eating routines and offspring . Their accommodations were pretty primitive. Just a small wooden shack where they cooked meals on a propane stove and their tents.
Emma [00:03:59]: Most tents are not meant to be set up for 90 days straight.
So even just the sun damage is something that you have to consider. And so, for that reason and for the reason of the birds droppings, we cover them in these thick tarps. So the tents are often quite, quite warm, you know, with the sun beating down on the thick plastic. So I think our tents are fairly unpleasant, maybe, in the sense that they're hot, stinky, and just absolutely covered in white bird droppings.
Dr. Rae [00:04:30]: Peter, I’m excited to hear this conversation you had with Emma because, as you know, I stayed on the mainland for this episode.
Peter [00:04:39]: Yes, Rae it was an adventure! Eastern Egg Rock is a 6 mile boat ride from shore and, once they’ve started their work there, the biologists generally don’t leave for three months. So it was kind of a shock when I showed up there with our Wild Kingdom crew.
Emma [00:04:55]: It was so strange. You know, you have these long stretches of time on the island where nobody comes out to visit. It's just, you know, it was myself and the three members of the crew that you saw in the episode. And so, you know, you become quite insular, maybe even awkward. You have your own strange society. You're forming your own language, you know, and then you get these moments where society kind of touches back down onto the island. And so to have to have you and the camera crew and the sound guys come out to the island was nerve wracking and exciting and strange. You guys did a lot to help support us and make us feel comfortable.
Peter [00:05:34]: Well, I think from the beginning things became very relaxed. If you probably remember, the first camera showed up and, Sarah had the camera on her shoulder and bird flew over her head and did what birds do right off the top of her lens, splashing into her face. And from that point on, everybody was completely relaxed, working together.
Emma [00:05:56]: It's a true welcome to the island. You know.
Peter [00:05:59]: It was. It was a birdy welcome to the island, I must say. And then you all had hats. That look like you've been painting the ceiling with white rollers very sloppily, and you're working day after day after day. And as if that's just the way of life out there.
Emma [00:06:15]: Yeah. It can't be helped. Everything on the island. Your clothes, your hat, the cabin, the tents, even, you know, into your food. Sometimes you just. You can't help it. And the birds have incredible aim, too. You know, when they. When they see you moving about in the colony, they can aim straight at your face, and. And they hit their target a lot of the time. It's not always pleasant.
Peter [00:06:33]: I just have to know. What did make you decide to sort of put normal life on hold and go live among the puffins?
Emma [00:06:40]: I got interested in seabirds during the end of my bachelor's degree, and then had an opportunity to do a master's on a large species of Arctic gull. And I just completely fell in love with the Arctic, with seabird species. I just. I just couldn't get enough. And so. Opportunities to go to islands like this. I mean, I just I just absolutely jumped at it, you know, get me there. When can I go? How how long can I stay? You know, I want at all.
Peter [00:07:06]: But what about the first time? I mean, you must have been nervous, knowing I am going to go out and live on a rock with birds for months at a time.
Emma [00:07:13]: Yeah, I was definitely nervous and I really didn't know what to expect. I had done a little bit of camping in the past, but that's it's not the same, you know, as being out on these islands with very few people and, very few amenities, you know, no running water, no, no plumbing, no electricity, a lot of the time, or very limited sort of access to any one of those things, getting food and fresh water delivered by boat and knowing, too, that if, you know, if you fell off the cliff, it might be hours or potentially days before, you could get to shore and get to a hospital. So you're definitely in a position of, of higher risk, I guess.
Peter [00:07:54]: Well, I see the attraction for you.
Emma [00:07:58]: It's exciting, but it is it is also scary.
Peter [00:08:01]: Can you talk a bit about the role this island plays in the puffins migratory route?
Emma [00:08:05]: Yeah, the puffins spend most of their year at sea, so they they really are seabirds in the most traditional sense. The sea is, is their home. And it was only kind of up until recently, we didn't know where they went. You know, we knew that they left, that they left the coast of Maine, that they left these breeding islands. But we really didn't know for sure where they would go. And so now we've got birds that get tracked and they're being tracked all across the Atlantic. But then, yeah, when the weather starts to get nice, they return to their kind of core breeding islands. And because of Project Puffins efforts, Eastern Egg Rock is now among those core breeding islands that the puffins return to. And they spend a couple of months burrowed under the rocks, raising their one egg to a chick to then a fledgling, and then they go back out to sea and spend the rest of their year out on the ocean.
Peter [00:09:01]: Now, we did some tagging and monitoring when we were there.
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Emma [00:09:05]: And then we put a band on them so that we can ID them in the future.
Peter [00:09:08]: So each bird you cast will be banded if it's the right age, right?
Emma [00:09:11]: Yeah. With these nine digit bands, we're able to re-sight them over and over and over. So sometimes 30 years of re-sight.
Peter [00:09:17]: So this is a lifetime band.
Emma [00:09:19]: This is a lifetime band. Yeah. That's right.
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Peter [00:09:20]: What information do you gather from those.
Emma [00:09:22]: Yeah. So the the bands that are put on the legs of the birds tell a lot about that bird. So if you are able to band a bird when it's a chick and then it returns to the island and you can continue to re-sight it, you have an idea of how old the bird is, where it was born, and then now you can monitor you know who its mate is. Has it stayed with the same mate year after year? Does it use the same burrow? And how successful is it at raising chicks? And you can now get sort of a family tree. If you are able to band multiple generations of this family, you can now look at how successful they are over the long term. And then, we can also put monitoring tags on the back, so little GPS trackers and get an idea of where these birds go when they leave main.
Peter [00:10:06]: Now I'm imagine being on the other in is sort of like kind of a nerd summer camp. What were the vibes like among the team? You all worked together so well. Tell me more about it.
Emma [00:10:16]: Yeah. The team is incredibly important for the season to function. You know, you really creating your own small scale society, and it's it's sort of ephemeral. You know, you you're probably never going to have this same crew of the same people on this location together ever again. And that's kind of sad because, you know, you make it make really strong connections, but it's also kind of beautiful and it makes you appreciate the time that you do have together. So yeah, a crew can really make or break the season. And we had a wonderful crew on Eastern Egg Rock last year, just so, so strong and and yeah, I've so much love for them.
Peter [00:11:02]: That's great to hear because it would have been a long swim back. Tell me something about the, your favorite part of the institute experience on the island.
Emma [00:11:13]: My favorite part. Oh, that's so hard. There's so many moments. One of the moments I guess I really loved was we had a pair of terns. Common terns, nesting basically right on the trail between the small cabin and our outhouse. Which was not maybe an ideal location for, their comfort or ours. But we got quite attached to these garden terns. That was what we named them. And we named their chicks Puddle and Ripple because they were laid when it was pouring rain. And we were able to watch these chicks and get to see kind of every stage of their lives. So we really felt kind of connected to this nest. And you don't always know if the nest is going to be successful. And the second chick, Ripple, only lasted a couple of days. So we knew that the chances were small, you know, that that Puddle would succeed. But we watched Puddle fledge and we were so excited to see to see them flying, to see them chasing their parents around. And that was just it felt like this perfect kind of culmination of the season of getting to watch every stage.
Peter [00:12:23]: That's just reminded me of my absolute favorite time on the island when we were shooting, was getting the release of Puffin back into the wild after he was tagged.
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Peter [00:12:39]: All right, little guy, off you go, back to the ocean where you belong. I hope you come back here and lay lots of eggs. Ready? Wow, it's really good. Let's turn to those. Back to the ocean. Yeah.
Emma [00:12:51]: We need a name for it.
Peter: What's your name?
Emma: Would you like to name it?
Peter [00:12:54]: Yes. How's Marlin?
Emma [00:12:57]: Marlin. I love that. Yeah. Put it on the sheet right now.
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Peter [00:13:01]: Incredible time for me. What an experience. But you told me. Be careful about getting bitten. What is it? Puffin bite. Like I didn't get bitten. I held it carefully. Thanks for your warning. Are there really their beaks? That powerful?
Emma [00:13:13]: Definitely they are. Yeah. Marlin was quite kind to you, and that's nice. But, yeah, a puffin bite. It really hurts. They have these sort of backwards serrations inside their bill that they use to hold multiple fish so they can go out on a trip and collect, you know, ten, 15, 20 fish, all in a single bill load to bring back for their chick. Which is wonderful for them. But for us, those backwards serrations mean that when they do latch on with that big, strong bill, they can tear the skin. You know, you can bleed. And even if, if they don't break the skin, you often have bruises or, or painful marks from where they got you.
Peter [00:13:54]: Now you tell me. You just said be careful. I didn't have any of that detail then, but it was one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. I will always remember being able to turn and face them into the wind, let them go and see how strong he was as he headed out to sea.
Dr. Rae [00:14:14]: One of the fascinating pieces to the puffin conservation story is that back in the 1970s after those first pufflings were hatched on Eastern Egg Rock they did not come back to the island when they were adults. So Steve Kress and Project Puffin figured out a plan. Knowing that puffins are highly social beings they got local artists to make puffin decoys to populate the island.
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Sue [00:14:38] My name is Susan Shoebill. They call me seabird Sue. I'm the decoy project manager. When I'm painting decoys, I do like to think about the real birds encountering the decoys and each other.
Dr. Rae [00:14:52]: How perfect does this need to be?
Sue: Not perfect at all.
Dr. Rae: Oh, good.
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Peter [00:14:56]: Today, Emma and the other field biologist on Eastern Egg Rock still see the value to those decoys.
Emma [00:15:03]: Yeah. The decoys are known as social attraction. So what they're doing is that they are creating the idea. Or sort of a facsimile, I guess, of a puffin colony. So a puffin might be flying by and it glances down at the island, and it sees these small black and white birds. And so suddenly the puffin is thinking maybe this island. Actually, it's a good spot to nest. Maybe this island is safe. It's kind of been been vetted by these other birds that it sees down there, and it starts to think, yeah, this this is a good spot. You know, my mate and I, we can we could check it out. And we've got the decoys all over the island. And they use sound recordings as well. So you're hearing puffin calls and this puffin is feeling like it's joining an active neighborhood instead of, you know, trying to start one from the ground up. And that helps to bring the puffins in, and they treat it as if it's another puffin. And so they will sort of rub or knock their bills against it. They'll kind of circle around and sometimes even lay down or sit next to one of the decoys. They really treat it as if it's another puffin.
Peter [00:16:11]: Yeah. If I was winging my way south and happened to see an island full of those from a distance, I'd certainly stop by and consider calling it home.
Emma [00:16:18]: I definitely would too.
Peter [00:16:20]: What are the primary risks that puffins have to face, by the way?
Emma [00:16:23]: Yeah. Puffins in the past dealt with a lot of problems due to overhunting. And so that was one of the reasons why the population on Eastern Egg Rock stopped existing, I guess, was that these overhunting pressures just completely eliminated the breeding population. And a lot of birds faced that due to either hunting for food or for the millinery trade. So feathers for hats. But now it's a lot to do with habitat. So, you know, are we continuing to allow these wild places where the puffins can feel comfortable to breed and be successful? You know, outdoor cats can be a real problem on these islands. They can eliminate any kind of burrow nesting birds. And climate change is definitely a major threat for puffins. It's really important that they're catching fish, you know, that are healthy for them and their chicks. They need a lot of energy to power that flight, as you saw. You know, they've got short little wings and heavy bodies. And so it takes a lot of energy to move them around. And so if they're not getting fish that have a lot of nutrients in them, then they're going to struggle.
Peter [00:17:25]: What is their state in North America? How are they doing generally?
Emma [00:17:28]: I think the Project Puffin is doing wonderful work restoring colonies to Maine, and they've continued to expand and and bring puffins back to more islands. And it's so, so important to continue to do the monitoring. But it's hard. You know, the the Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest warming bodies of water on Earth.
And so the puffins are definitely facing a bit of an uphill battle. And so we continue to hope that that they will be able to adapt to changes, that they'll find other species of fish that can continue to support them.
Peter [00:18:01]: You've handled hundreds, maybe thousands of these birds. I'm sure they all have different personalities. Is it sort of bittersweet for you when you have to see them go?
Emma [00:18:13]: It's definitely bittersweet. Yeah, it's it's such a special experience to spend time with them, to get to observe them, you know, from a distance when they're when they're completely in their element and they're interacting with their mates and their neighbors. They're so social. And so it's wonderful to get to see how curious they are about each other. You know, if one puffin is a bit clumsy and it falls off the rock, then the other ones all scurry over to look down and see what happened. Where did it go? Or they'll get into little fights with each other, and and the other neighbors will all come out to see what's happening. So you really get a sense of this bustling kind of neighborhood of puffins all in these shared little burrow suburbs.
Peter [00:18:57]: You know, I think a lot of people don't know about the the labor and commitment of field biologists like yourself. So much work goes into preserving these species. What are some of the things you wish the public knew about your profession?
Emma [00:19:09]: Yeah, it's it's hard work, and and it takes quite a bit of commitment. You know, I don't think people realize that we're on these islands for months at a time. You know, the season that you came out to visit. Myself and my crew, we were there for more than 90 straight days. And, you know, we we work seven days a week. There's no breaks. And that means, you know, no breaks to to go home and see family. It means no breaks to go to a local cafe and just have a few hours to relax. So even when you're not working on the island, you're still kind of working on the island in the sense that it's a small space and your crew is always there and the birds are always there. So yeah, you're really kind of giving everything to be there. And to commit fully to kind of to this experience and to this work
Peter [00:20:02]: I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit here, so if you're going to warm your vocal chords, maybe you can imitate the sound of a puffin.
Emma [00:20:10]: To me, puffins sound a bit like a combination between a cow and a chainsaw. So I would say my best, my best puffin attempt would be like, oh.
(Emma Puffin call)
Peter [00:20:26]: I heard the puffins out there. That was excellent.
Emma [00:20:29]: Oh. Thank you!
Peter [00:20:31]: Is there something you wish you had known before you started this line of work?
Emma [00:20:35]: I think I knew that it was going to be incredible experiences. You know, with the wildlife. I knew that I was going to be seeing, these beautiful locations and getting to work closely with animals that most people never get to see, let alone, you know, hold. But I don't think I realized what it was going to be like with the people, you know, that they're getting to spend time working so closely with other biologists who are so passionate about the work that they do, so knowledgeable. I have so much that they can share. And Project Puffin has such an amazing network of of biologists and researchers, and we were able to celebrate the 50 years and so, so many of them returned for the celebrations. And I felt so connected to these multiple generations of scientists who have been working towards this goal. And that was wonderful to get to get to experience that with them. I'm getting kind of emotional, but you feel really, really connected to to people that have again poured their life into this.
Peter [00:21:41]: Well, thank you so much for sharing all of that with us. I came away being so respectful of all that you're doing to save this amazing little species of animals. So thank you.
Emma [00:21:50]: Thank you.
Peter [00:21:59]: Puffins spend the majority of their lives at sea, but they're also a very social animal. Having a familiar and safe place to breed helps this very cute and very tough species thrive. For over 50 years Project Puffin and dedicated people like Emma have worked to restore natural mating and nesting habitats for these beautiful sea birds ensuring magical moments in the wild kingdom for future generations.
Emma [00:22:29]: I really love to, just to watch, you know, any bird, it doesn't have to be, on some special out of the way island. I love to just watch the local gulls in the harbor at the beach. So I think going out to see these birds off on these remote islands made me more greatly appreciate the littler moments back at home as well.
Dr. Rae [00:22:52]: Join us next week when we speak with Patty Ihrig-Buekendorf from the St. Louis Zoo. Patty’s working to help reintroduce giant salamanders called hellbenders to the fresh mountain streams of the Ozarks.
Patty [00:23:05]: A Hellbender is a large aquatic salamander they’re an amphibian so they're closely related to frogs. that can get about 2 feet long. They have a large flat body. If you think of a sheet of lasagna pasta that’s what a Hellbender looks like.
Dr. Rae [00:23:20]: That’s next week on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom The Podcast.
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom The Podcast is a production of Pineapple Street Studios and Mutual of Omaha.
Our Senior Producer is Stephen Key.
Producers are Xandra Ellin and Jenny Van Soelen.
Associate Producer is Lisa Cerda.
Editor is Darby Maloney.
Executive Producers are Bari Finkel, Gabrielle Lewis, and Jen Wulf.
Pineapple’s Head of Sound & Engineering is Raj Makhija. Senior Audio Engineers are Marina Paiz, Davy Sumner, Javi Cruces, and Pedro Alvira. Additional engineering by Rob Miller and Jason Richards.
This Episode was mixed by Davy Sumner.
Production Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound and Hearst Media Production Group.
Episode Clips courtesy of Hearst Media Production Group.
Fact checking by Justine Daum.
Marketing and Promotion by Emily Poeschl.
This podcast is hosted by me, Dr. Rae Wynn Grant.
And me, Peter Gros.
Special thanks to Katelyn Williams, Sophie Radmilovich, and Stephanie Diaz.
Today’s episode is based on the Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom series created by Don Meier.
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