Earthly matters

Barbara's puffin love began in 1995, when a longtime employee fell in love with the brightly-colored birds on a trip to Alaska. At the time, Barbara's was on a name search for their newest all-natural crunchy corn pillow cereal. It was a puffed cereal…it floated on milk…kind of like the way puffins spend much of their lives at sea. The day they tasted and brainstormed about cereal names was the day “love at first sight” met “love at first bite.” Puffin love had its birth in their Petaluma kitchen, with lots of smiles.

Next, they dove into learning all about puffins… and surfaced with a wonderful tidbit called Project Puffin, the Audubon Society's innovative project to restore Atlantic puffins to their former habitat of Eastern Egg Rock, located off the rugged coast of Maine. Barbara’s Bakery itself was born in 1971, surrounded by the spirit of Earth Day, composting, recycling and no pesticides. Project Puffin’s goal to serve as an earth steward for these brave little birds matched the spirit that has been with Barbara’s Bakery since their beginning.

They introduced themselves to Dr. Stephen Kress, the ornithologist who created the project, and became a donor to his cause. They watched in awe and amazement as, each year, more and more puffins returned to breed on Egg Rock.

As Puffins cereals gained a national following, they offered people a connection to the birds of Project Puffin on the backs of all four Puffins™ cereal boxes (Original, Cinnamon, Peanut Butter & Honey Rice), with a call to support Dr. Kress and the growing Egg Rock Colony. People have been responding enthusiastically ever since.

The PROJECT PUFFIN Story

When Dr. Stephen Kress boated out to Eastern Egg Rock in 1969, he was sad to spot only sea gulls and a few eider ducks. There were no puffins anywhere. As a wildlife scientist, Dr. Kress knew that the tiny island had historically been populated with puffins. Since the 1600’s, European immigrants hunted puffins for both food and feathers leading to 1901, when just one solitary pair of puffins lived on Matinicus Rock, 22 miles out from shore. All the puffins on the other five islands off Maine’s coast had been killed.

Due to the U.S. 1918 Migratory Bird treaty Act, which made it illegal to kill most wild birds, puffins had returned to two of the six coastal islands. However, a large gull population had probably prevented puffins from returning to Eastern Egg Rock and the three other islands. No one had ever started a puffin colony before. Dr. Kress became inspired to try.

Dr. Kress had an idea he could transplant Newfoundland pufflings (baby puffins) to Egg Rock, and lure them to stay with loving help from humans. With the assistance of the Canadian and U.S. governments, Dr. Kress and Audubon naturalists transported a small colony of young puffins from Newfoundland and reintroduced them to Eastern Egg Rock, Maine between 1973 and 1986. There was lots of “bird-sitting” every summer, with researchers watching and hand-feeding brave little pufflings 20 to 25 fish a day in hand-made underground burrows. Normally puffin parents would care for the pufflings but instead, the Project Puffin scientists became puffin parents. With great hope in their hearts, the team watched the pufflings swim off. Would any of the puffins return?

Four years after the first puffins were transplanted, the first puffin returned. Eight years later, in 1981, puffins began nesting on Eastern Egg Rock for the first time in 100 years. The Audubon team was overjoyed with puffin love. Project Puffin is an ecological success story, built by humans with hard work, time, patience and love, and fueled by one man’s vision to make a difference.

Project Puffin celebrated its 33rd Anniversary in August 2007. Eastern Egg Rock’s field season closed with a new record high count of at least 90 puffins pairs.

Barbara’s and its consumers sponsor at least 20 puffins through the Adopt-A-Puffin program of Project Puffin. Barbara's also sponsors Audubon's Project Puffin Cam, which records real time video of puffins and their seabird neighbors at Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge. You can also learn more about puffins by visiting Audubon's www.ProjectPuffin.org.

ADOPT-A-PUFFIN

Barbara’s Bakery wants to share Puffin Love with their customers. Through our Adopt-A-Puffin program everyone can contribute to the preservation of the puffins' Maine habitat and help fund ongoing research.

In addition to their support through Project Puffin, they've also adopted a many puffins, including 10 that were adopted in 2007 with their customers’ box top contributions. They are named: Babs, Berry, Chip, Cinnamon, Honey, Peanut, PJ, and Puffy.

Your school, classroom, club, or other organization can adopt and name its very own puffin. Just collect 250 box tops or UPC code flaps (found at the bottom of the box) from any Puffins cereal and send them to Barbara's Bakery. Through Audubon's program, they will adopt one puffin for one year. They will also post your organization's name, home town -- even a photo if you send them one -- on their website. Individuals can also participate by sending in box tops. They'll pool them until we have enough to adopt a puffin.

Please send your box tops or UPC code flaps to:

Barbara's Bakery
Attn: Adopt-A-Puffin
3900 Cypress Drive
Petaluma, CA 94954

If you have questions about the Adopt-A-Puffin program, please see their “Contact Us” page at www.barbarasbakery.com and drop them a note.