WALDOBORO — The National Audubon Society has announced that it has received a grant from the Down East Energy Co. of Brunswick and South Portland, in support of its efforts to protect and restore Maine coast puffin colonies.

Down East Energy is one of a group of Good Friends Down East Cos. whose product lines include building supplies, heating and motor fuels and convenience stores, operating throughout Maine and New Hampshire. Down East Energy shares the Audubon Society’s interest in protecting Maine puffins and promotes awareness of the puffin through its “Puffin Stop” convenience stores.

This grant will support two student interns who will be based at Eastern Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay during the puffin breeding season. This funding will pay for stipends and food for the students who are employed by the Audubon Society to protect and study the Egg Rock puffins.

The National Audubon Society successfully restored Atlantic puffins to Eastern Egg Rock, a 7-acre, treeless island in 1981 by transplanting nestlings from Newfoundland. The puffins were extirpated in the late 1880s because of excessive hunting for food and feathers. Nearly 1,000 puffin chicks were hand-reared and released at the island from 1972-1981. Some of these returned to breed at the island in 1981. By 1989, 14 pairs of puffins were nesting under boulders around the perimeter of the island.

Eastern Egg Rock is the southernmost United States puffin colony and one of only three puffin colonies off the Maine coast. Puffins also nest at Matinicus Rock off Rockland and on Machias Seal Island off Cutler.

In addition to protecting the puffins, National Audubon has conducted pioneering work at Eastern Egg Rock concerning methods for creating tern colonies. In 1989, nearly 1,000 pairs of common, arctic, and roseate terns nested at Eastern Egg Rock. Last summer, Eastern Egg Rock was the largest common tern colony in Maine, the second largest roseate tern colony and the southernmost breeding site for arctic terns in Maine.

Eastern Egg Rock is owned by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Through a cooperative agreement with the National Audubon Society, it is managed and protected as the society’s Allan D. Cruickshank Sanctuary.