This is the story of the adorable Atlantic Puffin.

Its rainbow-colored beak, in sharp contrast to its black and white feathers, the Puffin

had become so prized at one point, Puffins were almost lost to extinction.

In eastern Egrock Island here in the Gulf of Maine, in the early 1970s, before society

fully embraced conservation, a young renegade biologist named Steve Cress decided to stand

up to the inevitable inertia.

He called it Project Puffin.

Project Puffin started in 1973, because people had hunted all the puffins all over that

island.

To do what?

To eat them?

To take their feathers, because back in the day, feathers were used for pillows, they

were used for mattresses, they were used to decorate women's hats.

And for all those reasons, people killed puffins.

And you thought to yourself, we can restore the population?

They ate them all.

They were gone.

And I thought, what a loss.

Isn't this terrible?

But some people have taken them away, and future generations can't enjoy them.

Maybe we could make a difference.

Maybe we could bring them back.

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