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Members of a five-person crew who spend their summers tending to puffins, terns, and other sea birds on Seal Island, Maine, share what it's like to do this essential work despite a changing climate and a hostile administration.
After contorting under boulders for puffin chicks, chasing skittish tern chicks in the weeds, and sitting as stone-silent sentinels in bird blinds to observe feeding and behavior, the five-person research crew on Seal Island relaxed in their work cabin in the orange and purple sunset glow. Their conversation on a mid-July evening wafted into waves of joy, angst, anger, and gratitude.
The emotional highs and lows of that conversation were something Coco Faber, Camilla Dopulos, Liv Ridley, Mark Price, and Jack Eibel wanted the world to hear and feel, from 21 miles out to sea from the coast of Maine.
A puffin catches a fish. (Photo by Derrick Jackson)
The joys were obvious. One was that, despite the Gulf of Maine overall being one of the fastest-warming bodies of ocean on Earth, it was a near-spectacular summer for puffins on Seal Island, a place legendary in the world of conservation. A part of the National Wildlife Refuge System and managed by the Audubon Seabird Institute, the island is part of the world’s first successful restoration of seabirds where humans killed them off.
Atlantic puffins were wiped out here and across several islands in Maine by the 1880s as coastal fishing and farming communities hunted them for their meat and eggs. Seal Island, a mile long, had hosted the then-largest-known puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine.
In my visit in mid-July, I often had between 100 and 200 puffins stretching across my view from my bird blind.
In the 1970s, Steve Kress, then an Audubon bird instructor in his late 20s, launched what became known as Project Puffin (and now known as the Seabird Institute). He brought hundreds of puffin chicks down from Newfoundland to hand raise on Eastern Egg Rock, a tiny 7-acre island, 6 miles off Pemaquid Point. Puffins began breeding anew on that island in 1981 and set a record 188 breeding pairs in 2019.
Kress repeated the experiment with hundreds more chicks on Seal Island, much farther out to the northeast. Puffins began breeding once more here in 1992. Last year, Faber and her team counted a record 672 active burrows.
“I’m very confident that there are more burrows,” said Faber, 31, who is the island supervisor and in her tenth summer with the Seabird Institute. “There are so many more that we have found since and burrows we might have missed because the chick fledged before we could get to them.”
You could not doubt her. In my visit in mid-July, I often had between 100 and 200 puffins stretching across my view from my bird blind. Puffin parents brought in a steady stream of juicy haddock, nice long sand lance, and even occasional herring to feed their chicks. Faber reported to fellow researchers on other islands that many Seal puffin chicks were “big and healthy.” Alcid cousins of puffins, black guillemots and razorbills, had their highest chick productivity ever.
If only all the birds the crew managed were so lucky.
A tern delivers a fine meal of sand lance to a chick. (Photo by Derrick Jackson)
The same ocean that was a sea of plenty for puffins was more of paucity for Arctic, common, and roseate terns. They are species also restored across the Gulf of Maine by the Seabird Institute and the US Fish and Wildlife Service after decades of absence. They screech and dive to protect their chicks on the ground from gulls. By coincidence, that vigilance also offers protective cover for puffins down below.
Many species of terns were among the estimated 300 million birds slaughtered in the late 19th and early 20th century for feathers to adorn women’s hats. Public outcry led to the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The protections helped the tern population in Maine briefly rebound until the 1930s.
But the overall ecosystem was so upset by the prior massacres that terns were crowded off many islands by herring gulls and great black-backed gulls. Both species of gulls were also decimated in the feather trade. But being omnivores that feast both on bird chicks and garbage from landfills and fishing waste, their populations recovered much faster than terns and puffins, which feed solely on fish. Terns left Seal Island by mid-century, and the island became even more inhospitable as it became a Navy bombing range from the 1940s to the 1960s.
With the help of decoys, recorded tern calls, and gull control, 16 pairs of Arctic and 1 pair of common terns nested once more on Seal Island in 1989. By 2011, the colony grew to 3,038 pairs.
“Our observations of the terns show us how the impacts of climate change can cascade in interesting and often horrifying ways,” Faber said.
But the colony has shrunk steadily and dramatically since then. This summer, the island crew counted only 1,203 Arctic and common tern nests. That was the lowest combined census count since 1995.
The reasons are likely many. The last decade and a half has seen the warmest water temperatures ever recorded in the Gulf of Maine. When temperatures are particularly high, species of fish that terns snatch on the surface to feed chicks often flee too deep to be caught. Unlike puffins, razorbills, and guillemots, which can dive to hunt a variety of fish, terns feed only at the surface.
Then add the fact that terns are only in the Gulf of Maine from May to August. Common terns migrate as far south as Chile and Argentina. Arctic terns are the world’s longest-traveling migratory bird, breeding at the top of the Northern Hemisphere and wintering off Antarctica. Some Arctic terns hatched in Maine veer around South Africa into the Indian Ocean before joining other terns in the Weddell Sea.
Between their fall and spring migrations and the incessant flying for food, they can cover 55,000 miles in one year. In a lifetime, an Arctic tern, which can live past 30, could have made three round trips to the moon.
In its journey, a single tern can face a myriad of uncertainties from sea ice loss, overfishing, pollution, and coastal development. In recent years, many Arctic terns have returned to Seal Island in poor body condition. An international team of researchers found in a 2023 study that what might seem “minor changes” in conditions along the migration routes of Arctic terns may sum up to an effect that proves to be “greater than the parts.”
The Seal Island crew said they are already witnessing the compound effects. This year, as in several recent years, many Arctic terns arrived from spring migration in poor body condition. After an early tease of herring and hake, most of the food being brought to chicks by summer’s end was tiny crustaceans. In my blind stints, parent terns landed before me with a single krill, a dragonfly, a moth, or a tiny pufferfish.
And it could be even worse. This summer was relatively dry, but in years of both poor food supply and incessant rains, crews have told me there is no more helpless feeling than being holed up in their cabin and tents while weakened chicks are being soaked into fatal hypothermia.
It feels harder to get people to care when the nation is currently under a White House that is trying to weaken or gut the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and firing thousands of federal staff involved with conservation.
“Our observations of the terns show us how the impacts of climate change can cascade in interesting and often horrifying ways,” Faber said. She said low weight adults may lay smaller clutches of eggs, abandon nests early in the season or flush more easily from nests when gulls swoop down to try to eat eggs or chicks. Parents that get lucky and return to the island with a juicy fish for a chick are mugged in midair by other terns and gulls, often dropping a fish that no chick gets to eat.
Poor fish availability of course leads to poor growth of the chicks that survive and less chance of surviving during their first migration. “If the fish don’t last for the entire season, tern chicks that started out fat and grew quickly can still starve to death,” Faber said. “Adults are also more aggressive to neighboring chicks, sometimes to the point of killing them and chicks will pile onto each other if an adult does land with a fish.”
It makes it all the more celebratory when luckier chicks do survive and start flying around the island. The first sight of a chick fledging is often a cause for cheering and clapping. “I call it Tern TV,” said Dopulos, 24. “Sometimes it’s comedy, sometimes it’s tragedy.”
Price, 19, noting how hard parent terns work to find food for chicks, even to the point of bringing insects back, said, “They’re such fierce fighters. The funny thing is, with puffins, we don’t ever see most of the chicks under the rocks. We see the tern chicks every single day. It feels more personal.”
Ridley, 27, added, “To think that they go from little fluff balls to trying to fly in three weeks and then fly to Antarctica never stops being amazing.”
The crew said if people, who pack boat tours by the thousands each summer to admire puffins with their clownish orange, yellow and black bills and tuxedo-like plumage, really cared about that bird, they would also care about the challenges for terns.
Fortunately, terns did much better elsewhere in the Gulf of Maine as several islands racked up record numbers of common terns in 2022. But with seabirds in severe global decline, nothing can be taken for granted. Neither Arctic terns nor common terns are federally endangered, but Arctic terns are a threatened species in Maine as they “still far below historic levels.” Common terns are in decline in the Great Lakes.
Faber said it was “morally repugnant” to her that in a world where humans consider themselves the center of existence, that a “cute” species like puffins merits attention, while so many other creatures, like terns, are afterthoughts or ignored altogether. “I love the puffins,” she said. “They are the umbrella species for conservation. But terns are the umbrella species for puffins.”
Puffins, once gone for nearly a century from several islands in Maine, are now a prime tourist draw. (Photo by Derrick Jackson)
And this is where the crew’s angst simmers into anger.
It feels harder to get people to care when the nation is currently under a White House that is trying to weaken or gut the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and firing thousands of federal staff involved with conservation.
“We get to escape from the darkest parts of the world,” she said. “I feel extra lucky to be here at this moment.”
The effects of the actions in DC earlier this year were acutely felt within the crew this summer. Dopulos had a job lined up this summer with the National Park Service. But it was cut by the Trump administration. She has several friends who lost their jobs in a service that has lost nearly a quarter of its permanent employees and left thousands of seasonal jobs unfilled.
“Some of them are still doing what they were doing to protect wildlife and resources, but as volunteers,” Dopulos said. “And they’re joining protests at the same time. They’re so passionate about what they do that they’re not going to let government get in the way. It’s a way of saying ‘We still persist.’”
Holding a puffin is the Seal Island crew of (from left to right): Supervisor Coco Faber, Camilla Dopulos, Jack Eibel, Mark Price, and Liv Ridley. (Photo by Derrick Jackson)
For Dopulos and the crew, talking about persistence led back to a more joyful place. Even with the oft-dour drama of terns, they all said they were grateful for the privilege of living for three months of the year out of tents, tending to such an historic sanctuary.
“It’s my favorite place in the world,” said Ridley, who winters as a line cook in Idaho. “You get to live in a place that is not human dominated. Everywhere else, we manipulate the world. People think that the human way is the only way, but living in a society of seabirds proves to me daily that it isn’t. I feel lucky to have that perspective.”
Faber said Seal Island has become her own sanctuary. “We get to escape from the darkest parts of the world,” she said. “I feel extra lucky to be here at this moment.”
Feeling just as lucky was Steve Kress, who came out to Seal Island for a day while I was there. He and I have coauthored two books on his seabird restorations. Being much more remote than Eastern Egg Rock, Seal Island has never come close to receiving the press the pioneering island still receives. But while Egg Rock proved puffins could be brought back, Kress said Seal’s restoration, with three times more puffins, “makes me see the grand possibilities for restoration where there is such abundant, quality nesting habitat."
“When puffins first nested at Seal Island, we weren’t as overwhelmed and relieved as when the first pairs reclaimed Egg Rock. But the fact that similar methods led to the same outcome proved that we were on to something very important. It’s encouraging to find that given enough time, persistence, and patience, successful restoration projects can become the norm.”
Kirsten Donald, a marine biologist, educator, and advocate with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, explains why the animals she works with need more protections, not fewer.
In July MAGA Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska introduced draft legislation that aims to gut the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act at a time when marine mammals are at greater risk than they've been in decades. It would get rid of protections against "incidental takes" from ship strikes, fishing gear entanglement, or deafening sounds from oil exploration, leaving it illegal only to directly shoot or harpoon a mammal.
Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, calls these proposed changes "a death sentence" for marine mammals. I decided to have a conversation with someone who deals with marine mammals every day to help clarify the situation. Kirsten Donald is a marine biologist, educator, and advocate with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center (PMMC) in Laguna Beach, California.
It's one of California's leading marine mammal rescue centers where they care for, rehabilitate, and release hundreds of sick and injured animals each year. Before coming to California, Kirsten worked for 18 years at the Dolphin Research Center (DRC) in the Florida Keys. In her 30-year-career she's worked with whales, dolphins, manatees, harbor seals, elephant seals, and sea lions. So thanks, Kirsten.
Kristen Donald (KD): A pleasure. Ever since I was a little girl, I got the thrill of being able to go to the ocean because my family had lived in Maryland for a time and I was just utterly fascinated and I just remember seeing dolphins swimming by and being absolutely enamored by them (and wanting to study marine mammal science).
And then, initially when I went to college, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was kind of lost and went into communications. And when I was about 26, I had a midlife crisis early and went back to career counseling and realized that I needed to be back in science and reminded myself that I loved animals. I happened to hear about this place called the Dolphin Research Center that offered a program called the Dolphin Lab, which allowed people to come down for a week and interact with their dolphin colony there. So, I traveled all the way down to Florida and I just fell in love with the dolphins and the mission to educate the public to be more compassionate to the issues that we face with these guys in the wild. And after a bit they asked me to apply for a job and that was in 1997 and I've been doing it ever since.
David Helvarg (DH): And the Dolphin Research Center, just so people understand, it's not SeaWorld, it's not all about entertainment?
KD: Oh, no. The, dolphin Research Center has some of the highest standards in the world for the care of the animals.They are an educational, nonprofit, and research facility that has a colony of dolphins that were born there mostly and some retired from other facilities. They also had some that stranded as babies and needed homes because they could not be put back in the wild. And so now the dolphins participate in everything from interactions with humans so people can realize that these animals should be conserved to a significant amount of research on the capabilities of these animals, both acoustically and cognitively so that we can understand the other species in the ocean and the parts they play in the ecosystem. It's a really wonderful place. It's all about the dolphins first.
The stranding coordinator came up to me and said, "You're the only person I have left. Here's a net, here's a kennel (like a dog carrier). Take the car and go to this beach." And I'm like, "I've never done this before."
I remember whenever we would do a session, you come down and if you had something in mind and the dolphins are like, "No," you had to change gears. That was your job, you gotta figure out what they want to do because it's not about making them do anything. But the thing was we made everything a game and exciting and fun. And so, the dolphins were always excited to come over and play. And really the drive behind it is the fact that we are not the owners of this planet. We share it.
I also got involved a bit in the research, whether it was taking behavioral research observations or later on developing a field research program on bottlenosed dolphins in the middle Keys, which had never been done before. And they're still doing that and have expanded that program today, which is really phenomenal. I became the director of education. And I became the director of the College of Marine Mammal Professions, which basically took all of the different Dolphin Lab weeklong classes… to create our own college and be able to grant an associate's degree in marine mammal behavior and care training, which was the first one in the world.
DH: So, you were 18 years there in Florida. What got you connected with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center?
KD: At the time I'd been at DRC for 18 years and believe me, it was the hardest change I ever had to make because all of those dolphins were very much a part of my family. But my daughter was growing up and I wanted her to have more opportunities. The Keys are kind of rural in a way and all of a sudden, this job popped up at Pacific Marine Mammal Center to run the Education Department.
And so, I decided to check it out and it reminded me very much of DRC when I first started. When I started at DRC, there were only 30 employees. And by the time I left there was over a 100 and even more volunteers. When I came to PMMC, we only had about 15 people at the time and just a handful of education programs. And I could see that there were so many opportunities to widen the educational opportunities and really reach a more diverse audience. Also, it gave me the chance to learn more about pinnipeds…We're dealing with the problems that are happening right now in the ocean and so, PMMC rescues typically in any given year, anywhere from like 100 to 200 pinnipeds and a few cetaceans as well.
DH: That would be seals, sea lions, and dolphins.
KD: Exactly. Seals, sea lions, and dolphins. And there have been years also where it was crazy. Like my first year happened to be the worst year on record for strandings. That was back in 2015. And from 2013 to 2016, we had an unusual mortality event because of that warm water blob (a massive marine heatwave known as "the blob") overlapping with the El Niño (cyclical Pacific warming). The waters were ridiculously warm.
And PMMC rescued over 500 animals, much more than we'd typically rescue. And it was due to the fact that since the warm water is there, the fish like colder water. So, they would either go deeper or further out to sea or further up north. And the pups that are on the Channel Islands (breeding colonies off Central California) couldn't swim that far in order to get nutrition. In addition, the mothers that are tied to the islands can't swim very far away because they've got to nurse their pups. And so, it became a situation where mothers were abandoning pups. Pups weren't getting enough to eat, and so there was just a constant influx of these animals.
And it was crazy because my second week at PMMC all the trucks are out, all the rescuers are out. And then the stranding coordinator came up to me and said, "You're the only person I have left. Here's a net, here's a kennel (like a dog carrier). Take the car and go to this beach." And I'm like, "I've never done this before."
"It's fine. You just pick them up and put them in the kennel, you know?" And I'm like, "Okay, I'll give it a try." And so, I went and the sea lion happened to be a very small pup that was on a pier, San Clemente Pier, curled up. Didn't even move when I picked him up, he was so emaciated. And so, I popped him in the kennel and then this lady ran up to me and she's like, "There's another one over there."
And he is really skinny. And you know, I'm from a different background in terms of when you work with animals that are in human-managed care, you introduce them slowly, you know, you let them get to know each other. And I only had one kennel and I'm like, how could I put another animal in this kennel? I can't do that. What should I do? So, I call her and she goes, "Oh no, just get them both. They don't care. Just shove them in. They'll be fine."
DH: This is triage. This is emergency room type activity?
KD: Yeah. And this is also me not being as familiar at the time with sea lion behavior because they do lie over each other. They create piles, especially as pups. And so, this one was going in and out of the water and I had to actually get the net and get between it and the water so I could net it and then put it in the kennel (with the first pup) and bring it back. So, that was my very first rescue, and I named the animals Yin and Yang because they were very different (personalities). And it was quite the experience.
DH: And as you say, it was a traumatic time because the blob was the worst of these major marine heatwaves that we've experienced linked to climate change. So, there was loss of prey, there was starvation at the time. And these marine heatwaves have also supercharged Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) that can also poison marine mammals.
KD: Exactly. And that's what's happened. This year we have had the worst harmful algal bloom on record. These animals are struggling right now with regard to climate change as well as plastics and chemicals in the ocean. I can give you two really good examples. Number one the gray whale, which was actually a huge success under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). It was one of the major successes of the MMPA. They were the first large whale species to be delisted (taken off the Endangered Species Act list) after whaling (was banned). They were almost decimated, and they came back 27,000 strong. And between 2019 and 2023, their population has plummeted down to 13,000 animals. So, half the population is gone and scientists looked into it and discovered that this was very much connected to climate change.
Basically, what was happening is that since the (polar) ice cover was receding earlier and the algae that grows underneath it, instead of falling to the bottom and feeding the amphipods (tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that the whales feed on) the ice would recede. The fish go in and eat up all the algae and the amphipods die. And these guys (the migrating gray whales) go up there to eat the pods but there's not enough up there. And so, they spend longer and longer trying to eat, expending more and more energy. But they're still coming back emaciated. And they are dying in droves all up and down the coast from Canada to Mexico.
I think that's what everything going on in society is telling us, that people really need to step up and get involved.
So, it was an international event. And actually, they closed the Unusual Mortality Event (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designation) after 2023. And just this year we are already having a ton of these animals stranded up north around the Monterey Bay area, starting again. It's considered an unusual mortality event because it's something that we normally don't see and is not a natural cycle. So, they thought it was over in 2023, but just this year, in 2025, it's begun again. So, these guys (gray whales) are not out of trouble. In fact, if they can lose half their population in just a few years, this is the worst time to take away their protections.
The other example is California sea lions that breed around the Channel Islands. And one of the studies that our veterinarian did was in looking at the high levels of DDT in these sea lions because there's DDT that was dumped back in the 60s near those islands (by the Montrose Chemical Corp. and others via LA storm drains).
And DDT is a very toxic persistent organic pollutant, which is basically a fertilizer but it stays in the environment for thousands of years. These animals are accumulating it through nursing as well as the food that they eat. And what we've discovered is that they will develop cancer because the DDT interacts with a herpes virus, which pretty much they all have, and is a catalyst for cancer. And so about 25% of the adult patients that come through PMMC are diagnosed with terminal cancer unfortunately, and that's the highest rate of cancer in any mammal on the planet. So again, we're dealing with, human impacts on these species and so they need the protections. In fact, they need more protections than the MMPA provides currently.
DH: We had a few decades where the Marine Mammal Protection Act was working well. The Florida manatees went from 1,000 to 10,000, right?
KD: The Marine Mammal Protection Act is great. It has helped a lot of species, but there are still species that need even more protection like the North Atlantic right whale. There's only 370 of them left. And the changes that are proposed (in the MMPA) actually will delay any action to help them by reducing entanglements (in fishing gear) or ship strikes which are the two major things that are hurting their population. And they don't have 10 years to wait because they've lost half their population since 2017. So, you can see the trajectory that they're already on.
DH: They're trying to roll back all environmental protections. With something like NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, people may not know what it's about, but with the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it's right there in the name. In the 1990s popular movements got us to dolphin-free tuna where they used to put the nets around schools of dolphin knowing tuna where underneath them and they'd kill hundreds of thousands of dolphins along with the tuna. Under this so-called MAGA "reform" of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, there's nothing to stop them from doing that again.
KD: Exactly, and we do need the power of the public right now. I think that's what everything going on in society is telling us, that people really need to step up and get involved.
DH: People need to not only volunteer with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center and other marine animal rescue centers for example but also to call their congresspeople and senators and say, "This is not acceptable."
KD: Exactly, that's something that we talk about all the time, and this is why I am such a big proponent of education, helping people understand that they have power, they have a voice. To stand up and call your congressmen if everybody is doing that and letting them know that they care about these issues. If you're a congressperson and not listening to your constituents, you're probably not going to get reelected. And you're there to represent the people's interest. And so, we need people to express that interest.
DH: And again, there's this disingenuous argument being put forward by Republican sponsors of rolling back the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, which is these laws have worked so well that these animals are no longer at risk. And this is simply bunk. Like who are some of your patients right now?
KD: Well, actually our patients are all gone right now. We're very excited. We had a really tough year with the unusual mortality event we went through, with the harmful algal bloom because I gotta tell you, it was very rough. Literally most of the animals that came in, or at least half of them, had to be euthanized because they had too many toxins in their system that damaged their brain. Because that's what happens with domoic acid poisoning. It's produced by the algae, and the fish eat it. And then the sea lions eat the fish and get concentrated doses and that toxin goes to the brain, damages it, and it doesn't allow them to be able to navigate spatially. They do things they're not normally doing…
DH: Wandering up on the highways. There was a lot of publicity recently about a sea lion that was biting surfers.
KD: Exactly. People were up in arms about sea lions biting and they don't normally do that. They normally leave you alone. But the animals were so out of their minds because their brains were damaged, that they were being aggressive. And so, there were quite a number, a large number of animals that we had to euthanize. And what was even sadder is that the majority of California sea lions that came in should be doing what they do every year—breeding.
The biggest help that we can provide is standing up for the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act because they're the two strongest, most important (animal protection) acts that have been passed in the United States.
And so many were pregnant. And they were not yet close to term. They were about three-quarters of the way through their pregnancies. But they were having to euthanize these females and in some cases, they'd have to induce abortions to try to save the females because there are so many toxins in the amniotic fluid that the female can reabsorb those unless we induce abortion.
And so, what's even sadder is when they would induce these abortions, some of the pups would try to take a breath, even though that they were not viable yet, they were not fully developed. And so, literally as the babies were coming out, they were brought to the veterinarian who then had to turn around and euthanize them.
It was a really traumatic year for our animal care. And it's really worrisome that again, this is the fourth year in a row that we've had a harmful algal bloom, and this was the worst on record. What are we in store for in the years to come? That's a real concern of ours. So, yes, it was a tough year.
DH: And again, at the federal level, we're both denying the reality of climate change and now trying to deny the reality that marine mammals are in serious trouble.
KD: Right. And when you look at things happening in the ocean, there's no denying climate change anymore. There's absolutely none. It's happening. It's affecting the animals. They're showing it to us. It's sad when we have these animals. We get them back up to speed, they're ready to go out, they're healthy. And then we realize we're releasing them into a damaged home, a broken home that we need to help fix because we broke it. And so, it's really personal to us.
DH: Okay. I really appreciate the work you're doing, and so let's end on a happy note. What was your last release?
KD: The last release I was on, it was great because I got to go with my entire staff and with some animal care people out on a boat release, because sometimes it's better to release the animals off boats (rather than from beaches), especially if they're like adult animals.
We get them further away from the beach so they don't present a hazard to people. That's where they're normally meant to be anyway, further out in the ocean. And so, we had three different animals, and you would basically move the crate up to the edge of the boat and open the kennel and they look around, they dunk their head in the water and look around and then slowly climb in.
And then you just do one after the other. And it's sometimes funny because I've seen elephant seals do the same thing where one will like stick his head in the water, then look at his buddy and wait for the buddy to go in. And then look in the water again and make sure, I'm thinking he's making sure there's no sharks, you know, let his buddy go in first.
So, it's neat and sometimes they'll look back at us too you know, and we like to think it's a "Thank you for helping me." And then they just swim away and do what they're meant to be doing. So, it's really gratifying to see them go home, but it gives us even more motivation to try to help get word out about these issues so that people can take action in their own lives to help, because there are all these simple things that we can do… The biggest help that we can provide is standing up for the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act because they're the two strongest, most important (animal protection) acts that have been passed in the United States and that also are unique.
This story is based on my interview with Kirstin Donald for Blue Frontier's Rising Tide Ocean Podcast that aired on August 25, 2025.
One advocate said the ruling "offers hope that we can restore protections to wolves in the northern Rockies, but only if the federal government fulfills its duty under the Endangered Species Act."
Conservationists cautiously celebrated a U.S. judge's Tuesday ruling that the federal government must reconsider its refusal to grant protections for gray wolves in the Rocky Mountains, as killing regimes in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming put the species at risk.
Former President Joe Biden's administration determined last year that Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for the region's wolves were "not warranted," sparking multiple lawsuits from coalitions of conservation groups. The cases were consolidated and considered by Montana-based District Judge Donald Molloy, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.
As the judge detailed in his 105-page decision, the advocacy groups argued that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) failed to consider a "significant portion" of the gray wolf's range, the "best available science" on their populations and the impact of humans killing them, and the true threat to the species. He also wrote that "for the most part, the plaintiffs are correct."
Matthew Bishop, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC), which represented one of the coalitions, said in a statement that "the Endangered Species Act requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider the best available science, and that requirement is what won the day for wolves in this case."
"Wolves have yet to recover across the West, and allowing a few states to undertake aggressive wolf-killing regimes is inconsistent with the law," Bishop continued. "We hope this decision will encourage the service to undertake a holistic approach to wolf recovery in the West."
Coalition members similarly welcomed Molloy's decision as "an important step toward finally ending the horrific and brutal war on wolves that the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have waged in recent years," in the words of George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch.
Predator Defense executive director Brooks Fahy said that "today's ruling is an incredible victory for wolves. At a time where their numbers are being driven down to near extinction levels, this decision is a vital lifeline."
Patrick Kelly, Montana director for Western Watersheds Project, pointed out that "with Montana set to approve a 500 wolf kill quota at the end of August, this decision could not have come at a better time. Wolves may now have a real shot at meaningful recovery."
Breaking news! A federal judge in Missoula ruled USFWS broke the law when it denied protections for gray wolves in the western U.S. The agency must now reconsider using the best available science. A major step forward for wolf recovery.Read more: 🔗 wildearthguardians.org/press-releas...
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— Wolf Conservation Center 🐺 (@nywolforg.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Sierra Club northern Rockies campaign strategist Nick Gevock said that "wolf recovery is dependent on responsible management by the states, and Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have shown that they're grossly unsuited to manage the species."
Gevock's group is part of a coalition represented by the Center for Biological Diversity and Humane World for Animals, formerly called the Humane Society of the United States. Kitty Block, president and CEO of the latter, said Tuesday that "wolves are deeply intelligent, social animals who play an irreplaceable role in the ecosystems they call home."
"Today's ruling offers hope that we can restore protections to wolves in the northern Rockies, but only if the federal government fulfills its duty under the Endangered Species Act," Block stressed. "These animals deserve protection, not abandonment, as they fight to return to the landscapes they once roamed freely.
While "Judge Molloy's ruling means now the Fish and Wildlife Service must go back to the drawing board to determine whether federal management is needed to ensure wolves survive and play their vital role in the ecosystem," as Gevock put it, the agency may also appeal his decision.
The original rejection came under Biden, but the reconsideration will occur under President Donald Trump, whose first administration was hostile to the ESA in general and wolves in particular. The current administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have signaled in recent months that they intend to maintain that posture.
WELC highlighted Tuesday that Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) "introduced H.R. 845 to strip ESA protections from gray wolves across the Lower 48. If passed, this bill would congressionally delist all gray wolves in the Lower 48 the same way wolves in the northern Rockies were congressionally delisted in 2011, handing management authority over to states."
Emphasizing what that would mean for the species, WELC added that "regulations in Montana, for example, allow hunters and trappers to kill several hundred wolves per year—with another 500-wolf quota proposed this year—with bait, traps, snares, night hunting, infrared and thermal imagery scopes, and artificial light."