MOUNT DESERT ISLANDER • September 26, 2021
This past year was a particularly bad one for the young Atlantic puffins that nest on Maine’s coastal islands. For the last 17 years, an average of 65 percent of puffin chicks would survive the season and leave the state’s seabird colonies. Those figures plummeted in 2021, according to experts. This season, an average of 25 percent of puffin pairs were able to raise chicks. Seal Island had one of the best rates, at 53 percent; Petit Manan was at about 10 percent; Matinicus Rock was at 34 percent; and Machias Seal Island was at 2 percent.