Common Guillemot Lays an Egg in Maine: First Since 1883

The egg raises hopes for the success of long-term efforts to restore the seabird species. "We are absolutely elated," said Dr. Stephen Kress, director of the National Audubon Society's Seabird Restoration Program. "The return of the common murre to its long-lost nesting grounds shows that conservation works – even against great odds."

The egg was discovered by a volunteer working for Audubon's Seabird Restoration program on Matinicus Rock, one of 50 islands in Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

It marks the first time since 1883 that the species, which spends most of its life at sea, has nested south of the Canadian border on east coast of the United States.

The volunteer noticed a pair of murres in typical incubating posture surrounded by about 50 murre decoys, and artificial eggs, and close to a sound system that emits murre calls to encourage the long-absent birds to establish new nests.

The common guillemot egg, lower right, was found next to a group of decoy guillemots. (Photo by Maria Cunha courtesy BirdLife International)

While widespread on the Pacific coast from Alaska to California, and breeders in Canada's Maritime Provinces, common guillemots were eliminated from their Maine breeding sites in the 1800s by people hunting the birds for food. Collecting of eggs - a popular pursuit at the time - may also have contributed to the disappearance.

"Common murre are especially vulnerable to oil spills and predation, so new colonies within their historic range offer the best assurance for their survival," said Dr. Kress.

Audubon, the U.S. partner of BirdLife International, and partners from the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge have spent 17 years trying to bring the common guillemots back to the islands.

Regardless of the fate of this specific egg, its presence signals a success story in the making. "Each new colony offers another margin of safety for common murres and other seabirds," said Dr. Kress.

The common guillemot is not the first seabird species that Audubon's Seabird Restoration program has helped restore to Maine. Pioneering the use of decoys and sounds now employed to attract the murres, the team began working to attract Atlantic puffin, Fratercula arctica, to the Maine coastal islands in 1973; four breeding pairs nested at Eastern Egg Rock in 1981, after an absence of nearly a century.

Today, Project Puffin protects more than 42,000 of Maine's rarest seabirds on 13 islands. Their techniques have also helped establish 12 new tern colonies in Maine and are proving useful for helping endangered seabirds in California, the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador, and Japan. Audubon says that at least 40 seabird species in 12 countries have benefited from seabird restoration techniques developed by the organization.

Copyright Environment News Service, ENS, 2009. All rights reserved.