Puffins Are Cute But Are They Smart? with Jillian Taylor

Jill Taylor is a puffin researcher, underwater videographer and science communicator. She is a bluenoser (born in Nova Scotia), and fell in love with the ocean while building sand castles for hermit crabs as a child. While she wouldn’t call herself a “bird person”, she was obsessed with emperor penguins when she was 11 and even had a penguin themed birthday party that year. Jill holds a B.Sc. (hons) in Biology and Psychology from Saint Mary’s University, and is finishing writing her M.Sc. thesis at Memorial University. Having researched howler monkeys, snapping turtles, American eels and now Atlantic puffins, she is a fan of nature in any form, but especially anything connected to the ocean. Her current research focuses on the social behaviour of puffins in Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, and what keeps this iconic provincial bird coming back to the same social colony year after year. Jill spends her weekends in the frigid Atlantic Ocean scuba diving, and is also the host of the upcoming science/travel TV show “Dive Newfoundland with Jill Taylor” coming out in 2025. During this presentation you’ll learn about puffin social behaviour, the largest puffin colony in North America, taxidermy puffins, puffin fight club, what living on a remote island is like, and if the puffins are doing ok.