Puffins are colorful seabirds that once nested by the thousands on islands off Maine’s coast. But overhunting for meat and feathers had completely wiped out these island puffin populations. After being gone for a century, the birds are now back—thanks to Project Puffin. The project has been relocating chicks to the islands for decades. Now there are two thriving puffin colonies with more than 500 nesting pairs.
Money raised by kids through Pennies for the Planet helped fund Project Puffin’s 36th season protecting colonies of Maine puffins, terns, and other seabirds. Donations helped feed hardworking humans—called seabird stewards—who protect the colonies of nesting puffins and other seabirds. Seabird stewards chase off predators like owls and gulls, and keep boaters from bothering the bird parents and their chicks. They also assist scientists studying the seabirds to find out how climate change and human activities are affecting seabirds.
Seabird stewards live on the islands over the summer. One group set up their tents in the middle of a colony of 5,000 laughing gulls last summer. The noisy gulls often sat on the tent roofs. That wasn’t so bad during the day, but their loud laughing was hard to take all night long! Hear for yourself what laughing gulls sound like by clicking here. You can also join the more than 40,000 viewers who watch the Puffin Cam on the Puffin Project website.
The sagebrush sea is a vast dry region of the western United States covered in sagebrush, a tough shrub with a magical smell. The area is home to all kinds of wildlife that depend on sagebrush habitat for survival including pygmy rabbits, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, elk, and big strutting ground birds called sage-grouse. But over the last 100 years, the sagebrush sea has been changed by energy development and humans building roads and houses. The sagebrush sea is shrinking as sagebrush habitat disappears along with the unique wildlife that depends on it.
Money raised through Pennies for the Planet is helping conservationists in Wyoming protect the sagebrush sea. It helped pay to fix miles of broken and lost fences. This will keep out grazing cattle that aren’t supposed to be there, leaving enough food and habitat for critical sagebrush species to survive.
Pennies for the Planet funds also supported the sagebrush sea through education. Naturalists created something called a Sagebrush Sea Traveling Trunk. It’s like a portable piece of the sagebrush sea! Inside the trunk are different kinds of sagebrush, a pronghorn skull and horns, sage-grouse eggs, scat, and bird feathers. There’s also information, lessons, and fun activities about the sagebrush sea. The trunk is loaned out to teachers or group leaders who want to teach kids about the sagebrush sea that surrounds them and its unique wildlife. You can learn more about it, too, here.
Swamp in South Carolina is an ancient wetland wilderness containing the largest stands of old-growth bald cypress and tupelo gum forest in the world. In it stand giant thousand-year-old trees surrounded by transparent water tinted the color of tea. Turtles, alligators, swimming snakes, river otters, and fish fill the slow-moving waters. Birds of every color and size wade, fly, perch, hunt, and nest in the swamp, and in May, newborn fawns can sometimes be seen only feet from the boardwalk. This watery forest sprouts ferns, flowers, and mosses. It brings forth beautiful butterflies, dragonflies, and damselflies, and many kinds of frogs and salamanders too. Rare bats with giant ears huddle in the hollow trunks of centuries-old trees.
One-third of all kid-collected Pennies for the Planet donations are being used to purchase a vital portion of land in Four Holes Swamp that will be forever protected, making all the wildlife that calls the forest home even safer. And every penny contributed was matched by funds donated by others for this important habitat acquisition. You can see some amazing scenes of Four Holes Swamp, its ancient trees, and water-loving creatures in a video by clicking here.