PSG 2024 – Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Stephen Kress
Stephen W. Kress is the founder of Project Puffin and former vice president for bird conservation at the National Audubon Society. Dr. Kress received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, and his master’s and undergraduate degrees from Ohio State University.
Lifetime Achievement Award – in recognition of significant and distinguished contributions to seabird conservation and restoration, mentoring, and the Pacific Seabird Group
Dr. Stephen Kress, founder of the Audubon Seabird Institute (retired), National Audubon Society
For more than 50 years, Dr. Kress’s research has focused on developing techniques for restoring and managing colonial nesting seabirds. The innovative restoration methods he pioneered, including the use of social attraction and the translocation of seabird chicks, have earned global recognition. The combined use of chick translocation, seabird decoys, mirrors, and sound recordings was first used to restore colonies of Atlantic puffins and several species of terns on Maine coast islands.
Project Puffin, now known as the Audubon Seabird Institute, boosted Maine’s nearly-extirpated puffin population to about 1,300 nesting pairs on five islands, demonstrating that endangered seabird colonies, even at the limits of a species range, can be restored. Following his first seabird restoration project at Eastern Egg Rock, Dr. Kress worked with various conservation agencies to create a network of seven seabird sanctuaries that are now home to more than 42,000 seabirds, including most of Maine’s rare and threatened seabird species. He credits his accomplishments to “three P’s”–patience, persistence, and partnerships. The techniques he developed, along with the lessons learned, have broad applications. A recent global review of the use of social attraction and seabird chick translocation found that at least 138 seabird taxa (about a third of all seabird species) were subjects of restoration projects at more than 500 locations worldwide.
Dr. Kress has long recognized the importance of public education, leading him to teach both in-person and online ornithology courses for Audubon and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, where he is a visiting fellow. He has mentored hundreds of young biologists from more than a dozen countries, many of whom trace their first interest in seabirds to summer positions with Project Puffin, living among seabirds on Maine islands, before moving on to careers in wildlife conservation. In addition, Dr. Kress has inspired thousands of conservation leaders of all ages as former director of the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine, where he continues to serve as an instructor. His autobiography, Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird back to Egg Rock (Yale University Press, 2015), was co-authored with journalist Derrick Z. Jackson. Dr. Kress is also the author of numerous books, articles, and scientific papers on seabird conservation, birding, and gardening for birds. In recent years, his research has focused primarily on the changing diets of seabirds in the Gulf of Maine in response to climate change.
