Saving Puget Sound's puffins: Bringing these ocean ambassadors back from the brink

Saving Puget Sound's puffins: Bringing these ocean ambassadors back from the brink John Ryan September 30, 2025 / 3:41 pm

Hundreds of seabirds clung to Williamson Rocks, a guano-covered cluster of stone and grass rising just above the high tide line in Burrows Bay, near Anacortes, Washington. The spectacle drew a flurry of shutter clicks from photographers on a passing tour boat.

The islet brimming with cormorants and gulls was missing at least one photogenic element, though.

Decades ago, tufted puffins nested there, as the comical-looking seabirds once did throughout Washington’s San Juan Islands.

“Historically, puffins were throughout Washington state waters, outer coast of Washington, all the way through into the Salish Sea, and up into British Columbia,” said University of P