Project Puffin is the inspiring story of how a beloved seabird was restored to long-abandoned nesting colonies off the Maine coast. As a young ornithology instructor at the Hog Island Audubon Camp, Dr. Stephen W. Kress learned that puffins had nested on nearby islands until extirpated by hunters in the late 1800s. To right this environmental wrong, he resolved to bring puffins back to one such island—Eastern Egg Rock. Yet bringing the plan to reality meant convincing skeptics, finding resources and inventing restoration methods at a time when many believed in letting nature take its course. Dr. Kress’s amazing story is brought to life by the incredible photography of co-author Derrick Z. Jackson. (Photo: projectpuffin.audubon.org)
Steve is Director of the Seabird Restoration Program and Vice president for Bird Conservation of the National Audubon Society. He received his B. S. in Zoology and M.S. in Wildlife Management from Ohio State University and his Ph.D. in Environmental Education from Cornell University. Steve began Project Puffin in 1973 and has remained its Director since the beginning. He is also Manager of National Audubon's Maine Coastal Island Sanctuaries. He was Ornithology Instructor at the Audubon Camp in Maine on Hog Island from 1969 through 1981, was the Director of the Camp from 1982 through 1986, and is currently serving as the Director once again. He is a Laboratory Associate at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY, where he teaches a very popular annual birding course called Spring Field Ornithology.
Derrick Z. Jackson was a 2001 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary. A *Globe* columnist since 1988, he is a two-time winner and three-time finalist for commentary awards from the National Education Writers Association and a 5-time winner and 12-time finalist for political and sports commentary from the National Association of Black Journalists. He was the 2003 recipient of Columbia University's "Let's Do It Better," commentary awards and a 2004 winner for commentary from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Jackson is also a three-time winner of the Sword of Hope commentary award from the New England Division of the American Cancer Society and a five-time winner of Unity journalism awards from Lincoln University in Missouri. Prior to *the Globe*, Jackson also won several awards at *Newsday*, including the 1985 Columbia University Meyer Berger Award for coverage of New York City and the 1979 award for feature writing from the Professional Basketball Writers Association. Jackson, born in 1955, is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is a 1976 graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Jackson was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University in 1984. He holds honorary degrees from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Salem State College, the human rights award from Curry College.