MAINE MONITOR • October 19, 2025
Crew members from the Audubon Seabird Institute worked to cull laughing gulls this spring and summer, part of an effort to protect breeding puffins and terns. This fight against the laughing gulls was the latest conservation challenge faced by Project Puffin, now officially the Audubon Seabird Institute. The project’s 1983 island report happily marked the discovery of three laughing gull nests after a 69-year absence, saying they “usually nest compatibly with terns and seldom elicit aggression.” Four decades later, aggression is a problem. The laughing gull population last year surged to a record 2,457 breeding pairs. The gulls are known for stealing food from other birds, eyeing puffins with beak-loads of juicy hake, sand lance or haddock for chicks, and watching terns hover with glistening herring dangling down from their bills.