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Convention Conservation Projects

CONVENTION CONSERVATION PROJECTS

2006: Project Puffin

The Bangor Convention Conservation Award grew to over $11,000 due to the generosity of our 2006 ABA Convention attendees and sponsors. This contribution went to Project Puffin, part of the Seabird Restoration Program of the National Audubon Society. The funds were earmarked specifically for the educational exhibits at the Visitor Center, which opened just after our convention. The Visitor Center is in Rockland, Maine and features "Puffin Cams", three cameras (two above ground, and one in an underground burrow) that show close-up views of live birds in real time, projected onto a wall-sized screen. The educational and interactive exhibits delight people of all ages, and further the cause of protecting valuable habitat along the coastline for puffins and other coastal species. Stop by the Visitor Center next time you are in Rockland!

In addition to contributing to the Project Puffin Visitor Center, ABA also contributed to another aspect of Project Puffin: we sponsored a puffin! Our puffin, affectionately called Nemo in the ABA office, is 16 years old, and was hatched on Machias Seal Island, Canada in 1991. He fledged in the evening of July 18, 1991. Researchers caught our puffling as he walked across the lawn in front of the lighthouse toward the shoreline. He was weighed, measured and banded, then released to continue his trek to the water. His first breeding season was in 1996, when he was 5 years old. Researchers know him as #MSI-516, and he recently bred with #U39 on Egg Rock Island in Burrow #31. The Seabird Restoration Program biologists watch the puffins on Egg Rock through spotting scopes to confirm their identities and watch their feeding habits at the burrows, and ultimately watch the pufflings poke their heads from the burrows. Egg Rock puffins "winter" on the North Atlantic and will venture back to Egg Rock in April. We hope that this pair will try to raise another puffling in 2008!

Should you like more information on Project Puffin, or find yourself on a birding adventure in Maine, be sure to visit the Visitor Center. Their web address is www.projectpuffin.org. You can take pride in knowing that, as an ABA member, you helped contribute to this very worthwhile program that all of us can share.