A Midcoast seabird education center could serve students, fishermen, tourists and others by building their knowledge of a marine habitat threatened by human development and exploitation.
The center is the dream of Dr. Stephen Kress, who in the past 30 years re-colonized Eastern Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay with a population of returning Puffins. The center, which has yet to settle on a suitable waterfront site, will involve a $3 million campaign, and partnership with the National Audubon Society, Maine Audubon Society, and possibly the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Kress has already talked to potential financial backers, and some local officials along the coast. “I’ve been playing with this idea for 30 years, so I’m eager to get going on it,” he said. “There is nothing like this in the lower United States.” The nearest seabird center is at Cape St. Mary’s, Newfoundland; Alaska, Scotland, New Zealand and Japan have seabird centers.
Wherever the center is built, Kress hopes to work with local school children, exposing them to the beauty, fragility and importance of seabirds as part of a sustainable natural environment. The center could include high-tech devices for viewing Puffins via electronic images on the island where they nest.
The proposed center would be year-round, open to all ages, and would offer both a visitors center and one to five-day seminars on bird identification and behavior, coastal ecology and natural resource management. A gallery would offer space for painting, drawing and photography.
Outdoors, the center would provide boat tours to nesting sites such as Eastern Egg Rock, Matinicus Rock, Seal Island, Stratton Island, Petit Manan Island and Machias Seal Island. Indoors, there would be meeting space for community events, a gift shop and library, plus office and archive space.
One of the biggest draws might be a live bird program, including what’s believed to be a first for New England: a rehabilitation facility for birds caught in oil spills.
“Seabirds and other coastal birds such as osprey, ducks, loons, herons and shore birds are the most conspicuous wildlife on our coast,” said Kress. “Their numbers include some of the most charismatic and appealing creatures on earth. Because [these birds] frequent and depend on habitats ranging from deep ocean to islands, estuaries and marshes, they can help to engage broad public interest in marine and wetland conservation,” he said.
Kress believes there is a pressing need to educate the public on marine conservation as the coast gets more heavily populated, destroying wildlife habitat and even causing some species to become extinct. “Seabirds can serve as a compelling connection,” he said. “By focusing on the lives of seabirds through interactive displays, a theater, art exhibits and dynamic instruction, visitors to the center will see how innovative management has led to the restoration of Maine seabird islands.”
Kress hopes stories like the return of Puffins to Eastern Egg Rock will inspire restoring habitats – and species – around the world.
Although best known for his continuing Puffin Project, based at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Bremen, Kress directs a regional Seabird Restoration Program that employs several people, and he is a professor at Cornell University’s ornithology lab.
More information can be found at: www.projectpuffin.org