Hollywood to Witless Bay: The double life of a Puffin Man

When he wasn’t rubbing shoulders with Hollywood stars, Juergen Schau was enjoying a totally opposite form of night life — searching for stranded chicks as a co-founder of a Puffin Patrol.

These days, Schau has traded a red runner tuxedos for a splendid yellow haven vest, and a gloves, flashlights, nets and cages he uses to rescue irrational pufflings that make their way to communities near the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve — home to North America’s largest cluster of Atlantic puffins.  

However, not too many people in Witless Bay — a small town along a southern seaside of a Avalon Peninsula —realize a accessible and eager Puffin Man who visits any summer from Berlin led a unequivocally opposite life outward Newfoundland and Labrador.   

Juergen Schau during a film premiere in Berlin in 2009. The former Sony executive is late now, though still provides recommendation and connectors for immature producers and directors in a industry. (Florian Seefried/Getty Images)

“Julia Roberts here, puffin there, right,” joked Schau, who was managing executive for Sony Pictures Entertainment, Germany and Austria.

“You are utterly tighten to a universe of a abounding and a famous, so it was great. I survived 11 years in this business of sharks and whales,” he said, referring to the movers and shakers of a film industry.

Julia, J-Lo and a Terminator

Schau spent time with some of a biggest stars in Hollywood, from carrying a splash during a bar with Julia Roberts, walking a red runner with Jennifer Lopez, display Jack Nicholson around Munich or attending Oktoberfest with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Can we suppose a tent with 12,000 people, and afterwards Arnold Shwarzenegger, a Terminator, and me … wonderful.”

Juergen and Elfie Schau bought their residence in Witless Bay 20 years ago on a whim. (Krissy Holmes/CBC)

But a assent he indispensable to change that star-studded life came from an doubtful place distant from home — a tiny residence on a corner of a sea in Newfoundland.

How it all started 

Schau and his mom Elfie trafficked a universe to go whale watching, and when she saw an essay about Newfoundland and Labrador in a German newspaper, they looked it adult on a map and motionless to book a integrate of tickets.

The couple fell in adore with a range on that initial revisit 20 years ago, and done a guileless preference to buy a residence before returning home to Germany.

‘It seems we overwhelmed maybe a square of a people’s heart with this small bird. we didn’t design it.’
– Juergen Schau

“We have seen a lot of places around a world, and this is unequivocally unique. As always, a lot of people who live here do not get what a changed thing it is.”

That was a start of a bequest that has saved thousands of baby puffins over a past 11 years. 

Biologists import any chick, magnitude a wingspan and tab it before release. (Eddie Kennedy/CBC)

On that initial revisit to Witless Bay, the integrate beheld a passed seabird on a highway and wondered how it finished adult there.

Pufflings venturing out for a initial time from a ecological haven only offshore mistake a splendid lights of a village for a moon. 

‘When we see a grin in a morning when we recover a birds, afterwards it’s happiness.’
– Juergen Schau

The night-blind chicks fly toward transport lamps and headlights, finale adult stranded or run over by vehicles.

So Juergen and Elfie bought a net and flashlight and began roaming a streets of a town, collecting pufflings and releasing them a subsequent morning.

Children dressed adult as superheroes for a recover of Puffin chicks Thursday morning. (Juergen Schau)

“I suspicion it would be a good thought to engage a children of a neighbourhood, and we told them, ‘From now on, we call we Puffin Patrol, and we are in assign with me to go save a small birds,'” pronounced Schau.

Since then, the organisation has grown to 55 permanent volunteers from a area and others who transport prolonged distances to assistance out.

Global visitors get into Puffin Patrol

Alexia Williams has been roving with her mom from Philadelphia to Witless Bay for a past 6 years only to attend in a Puffin Patrol.

“I adore saving a puffins. It’s unequivocally good since we feel like I’m doing something that’s good for a sourroundings … we only adore doing it, it’s a large passion of mine,” pronounced a 14-year-old.  

Visitors come from all over Canada and a U.S to participate, with tourists from Indonesia holding in a puffling recover Thurday morning.

Alexia Williams was acid online for a place to see puffins when she came opposite a Puffin Patrol and contacted Juergen. (Eddy Kennedy/CBC)

Last year, a organisation discovered and expelled reduction than 100 birds during Puffin Patrol season, which goes from a commencement of Aug to Labour Day, when many chicks are out of a nest.

This has been a record year so far, with 751 pufflings collected and released from Aug. 13 to 24.

It has turn a village bid that still takes Juergen Schau by surprise.

Volunteers accumulate on a beach Thursday morning to recover a pufflings discovered overnight. Local vessel debate operators also assistance out. (Juergen Schau)

“The village is operative so wonderful.  Quietly, nicely, professionally doing it. I am unequivocally happy about a village and a helpers,” pronounced Schau.

“It seems we overwhelmed maybe a square of a people’s heart with this small bird. we didn’t design it.”

While a splendid lights and gorgeous parties of a Hollywood life are seductive, there are some things income only can’t buy.

“When we see a grin in a morning when we recover a birds, afterwards it’s happiness. This is a best grin we can have but profitable any income for that.”   

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/puffin-patrol-juergen-schau-1.4260485?cmp=rss