Holberton quoted in Maclean’s report about islands between Canada, U.S.

Rebecca Holberton, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Maine, was quoted in a Maclean’s article about tensions rising over the last remaining disputed lands between the United States and Canada. The two treeless islands — North Rock and Machias Seal — are located in the ocean between Maine and New Brunswick. The waters around the islands contain a lucrative lobster fishery and are referred to as “the gray zone,” because both Canada and the U.S. claim that part of the ocean, according to the article. The islands’ primary residents are 5,800 pairs of puffins, and the Canadian government declared Machias Seal Island a migratory bird sanctuary in 1944, the article states. In the summer, a team of scientists live on the island to monitor the puffins and other seabirds. “Puffins don’t see borders,” said Holberton, who studied puffins on Machias Seal Island with Canadian and American scientists from 2007-12.