Marine Research in Focus: Counteracting the Myth of Dry Feet in Dutch Planning for Flood Defense
Coastal residents and towns need strategies to address climate change and its effects on sea-level rise, shoreline erosion, and coastal flooding. Extreme weather events can cause millions of dollars in damage and threaten coastal ecosystems and local economies. The Building a Resilient Coast project seeks to provide stakeholders with easy access to information to facilitate planning for climate and hazards impacts.
Coastal Conversations Radio Program: Voices of the Maine Fishermen's Forum, Part 2
Hosted by fishermen for fishermen, the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum is THE place to learn about current issues facing the fishing industry and the coast of Maine. At the 2018 Forum this past Winter, Maine Sea Grant, The First Coast and College of the Atlantic recorded dozens of stories for the “Voices of the Maine Fishermen’s Forum” collection. WERU aired some of these stories on Coastal Conversations back in March, but we are ready for more!
Summer 2018 Newsletter
A note from our new director, Gayle Zydlewski
I am excited to join the Maine Sea Grant team and support marine science for Maine people. I am so LUCKY to jump into such a well-established team that continues to enhance our coast by extending sound science to our communities. I look forward to working with the staff and endless partners who make up the Sea Grant network (family). Collectively we are privileged to have strong support from our federal delegation that sends us into a new fiscal year full of new opportunities...
Bagaduce Fishway Panels
In June 2018, the Town of Penobscot installed five new interpretive panels at Pierce's Pond. A new nature-like fishway provides passage for alewives and other sea-run fish, along with viewing platforms and a picnic area at the public boat launch. The Town and alewife steward Bailey Bowden, along with local partners at Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Blue Hill Heritage Trust, and Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, are leading the effort to restore migratory fish to the entire Bagaduce watershed.
Coastal Storms: Research & Impact Monitoring at the University of Maine
The Spring issue of UMaine Today magazine features an article about coastal storms-related research by Sea Grant and other UMaine programs and departments, including the Southern Maine Volunteer Beach Profiling Monitoring Program (with the Wells Reserve and Maine Geological Survey) and Ph.D.
Coastal Conversations Radio Program: Co-managing Maine Soft-shell Clams
Soft-shell clams are a unique fishery in Maine because coastal towns, the state, and, in many cases, harvesters themselves, work together to co-manage this popular seafood. Residents can join their town’s shellfish committee and participate in monitoring their clam resource, making decisions about how it’s managed for conservation as well as recreational and commercial harvest.
Alewives in Maine Lakes
The Heart of the Sea: Alewives Bring Ocean Nutrients to Inland Lakes, an article in the May-June 2018 issue of Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors Magazine. The article provides an overview of sea-run alewives and their role in lake ecosystems, and interviews with researchers studying the impact of alewife restoration on Maine lakes. The article is part of our work on the Penobscot River Habitat Focus Area with The Nature Conservancy and NOAA Fisheries.
Coastal Conversations Radio Program: Sears Island: Past, Present, and Future
Sears Island have been stewarding the island's natural resources and human history, and providing educational programs for all ages in its woods, fields, and shorelines.
This is Natalie Springuel, from the University of Maine Sea Grant, host of Coastal Conversations. On our next program, we'll explore Sears Island, or Wassumkeag as its original inhabitants called it, through colonial settlement, farming, fishing, industrial threats, and into today.
Local and Traditional Ecological Knowledge - and Those Who Keep It
Along the edges of bayou canals, shrimp boats were gearing up for the season, butterfly nets rigged and ready to drop, herons and laughing gulls flying from bank to bank. Along the shore, people young and old fished for spotted sea trout and redfish. Some stood on sinking docks, others sat in folding chairs. The noonday sun was high in a cloudless sky.
Beyond the fishing camps and the roads that lead to the camps, the bayou opened into an expanse of water and marsh, a horizontal world intersected by bleached skeletons of live oaks and the slanted white crosses of grave markers and a handful of fishing shacks accessible only by water.