Newfoundland Puffin Tour

Puffins, whales, & more

We’re a member of the Puffin Patrol, and release young fledging puffins back into the wild. Depending on the season, you can help us release baby puffins yourself. Hold a puffin in your own hands!

The Molly Bawn whale & puffin boat tour is just 40 mins from St. John’s. Every tour is a great opportunity to see puffins up close. Read more about the Puffin Patrol here.

Puffin Islands Our boat trip visits many tiny puffins islands, just 40 min from St. John’s

St. John’s puffin boat tour Puffins hunt along the Atlantic Ocean, right in front of our boat

Newfoundland puffins Puffins rest right in front of us

puffins fishing

puffin release

puffin patrol case

Puffin patrol tour We help Puffin Patrol rescue lost puffins on land, and release them on the tour

baby puffin

Puffin Patrol release You can help! Hold rescued puffins in your hands, and help us return them to the sea!

Puffins nest on islands Puffins nest on small puffin islands that we tour

puffin flock

Newfoundland humpback whales The boat trip also includes whale watching, and so much more

Atlantic Puffins

Atlantic Puffins are small, colourful seabirds with webbed feet. They live exclusively on the edges of the Atlantic Ocean, inhabiting tiny islands. Puffins swim on the surface of the ocean, and feed on small fish by diving underwater.

Our boat tour travels to the largest Atlantic Puffin colony in North America. With the seabirds fluttering all around the boat, it’s a sight to see.

(Photo by Richard Bartz, [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons)

The Puffin Patrol

Our crew is an important part of the Puffin Patrol, a group of volunteers devoted to rescuing puffins, and safely releasing them back into the Atlantic Ocean.

Members of the Witless Bay Puffin and Petrel Patrol monitor the roads at night to capture all lost chicks and keep them safe until the next morning. They are measured, weighed, banded, and released for a better second start of their new life.

Molly Bawn crew members are proud puffin patrollers every night, and also assist with releasing them out to the open sea. Often there are too many predatory gulls near the beach, formerly used for a land-based release. When this is the case, we dedicate the first run of the day to give the little puffins a lift far enough out of the reach of these gulls before they are released, to give them a better chance to grow up and come back to the islands after 5 years.