MACHIAS SEAL ISLAND, Maine (PORTLAND PRESS HERALD) - - Machias Seal Island, home of the largest puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine, has had the worst breeding season ever recorded, with the vast majority of chicks starving to death in their burrows.
The disaster followed a sudden drop in the puffins’ food supply – certain small fish – in early July, said Tony Diamond, director of the Atlantic Laboratory for Avian Research at the University of New Brunswick, who oversees research on the island’s seabirds. Adult puffins fly out to catch fish to feed their fledglings, which remain behind in burrows, but for the remainder of July and August the parents were returning with little in their beaks, Diamond said.
