BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 3, 2022
As the number of visitors to Acadia National Park has shot up during the pandemic, so has the number of illegal campers. Last summer, the park’s three campgrounds at Black Woods, Seawall and Schoodic Woods all reopened, except for the group campsites, but still rangers recorded 182 cases of illegal camping, a 25 percent increase from 2019. Overall, the park had more than 4 million visits in 2021, the most ever in the park’s 106-year history. Some illegal campers are people who intend to spend the summer on Mount Desert Island but have no place to stay.