The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 18, 2024
The warm temperatures may have kept many animals, including the Canada lynx, in the thicker, cooler brush this summer, but with moderation in the weather comes more activity. BDN contributor Allie Ladd said he hasn’t seen the lynx cross the water on this log since April, but he shows this one from two different camera views.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 17, 2024
In 2016 President Barack Obama designated Katahdin Woods and Waters a national monument, made up of 13 parcels donated by Elliotsville Plantation Inc. and Roxanne Quimby, founder of Burt’s Bees. Since then, the Elliotsville Foundation, the National Park Service, and representatives of the independent Native Nations that constitute the Wabanaki Confederacy — Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk and Sipayik, and Penobscot Nation — worked to build a visitor’s center. About 150 people on Saturday gathered for Tekαkαpimək’s unveiling and to hear the stories of the land and the Wabanaki people.
MAINE MONITOR • August 17, 2024
Seal Island, which sits 21 miles off Rockland, was once home to the largest Atlantic puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine. It was the second island that Audubon’s Project Puffin restored puffins to after a century’s absence spurred by hunting in the late 1800s. The first was Eastern Egg Rock, six miles off Pemaquid Point. Both islands were seeded with puffin chicks brought from Newfoundland. Puffins began breeding anew on Eastern Egg Rock in 1981 and Seal Island in 1992. This summer, despite the long-term warming of the Gulf of Maine and long-term increase in the severity of weather events, conditions were so uneventful that Seal Island set a record for breeding puffins.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 17, 2024
As someone with a master’s degree in environmental science and a history of working with NASA Earth Science missions focused on monitoring the Earth and ocean, I’m here to tell you: There are no “positives” to the changes that our climate is going through – especially when it comes to life in Maine. The climate changes to winter and destabilization of air masses has actually caused more weather extremes – including colder than normal extremes – which can negate “heating bill savings.” Economically, the impact of warmer winters to Maine’s winter-based economy and tourism is a huge negative to many jobs and stakeholders in outdoor recreation. The snow reserves that build up each year are the water stores that feed nature in the spring – filling lakes and reservoirs. Less snow equates to starting off the season on a wetness deficit, which has consequences to natural cycles, fishing, farming, fire risk and more. ~ Carla Lauter, Lisbon
CENTRAL MAINE • August 17, 2024
Artificial intelligence is one of the world’s fast-growing technologies, and that is raising alarm that AI data centers’ thirst for electricity will increase planet-warming emissions and strain the electrical grid. Google AI takes 10 times as much electricity to process a result as a regular Google search. Meeting the demand will put pressure on the U.S.’ aging electrical grid and, since 60% of electricity still comes from fossil fuels, increase planet-warming carbon emissions. We have to make sure this rapidly expanding technology doesn’t undermine climate goals. ~ Los Angeles Times editorial
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 17, 2024
The opening of a welcome center at Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument has been delayed while contractors and others put finishing touches on displays and other features. Tekαkαpimək Contact Station, which had planned to open in late August, is now expected to open fully in the fall. But visitors can get a first glimpse inside this weekend. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is scheduled to join federal, state, Wabanaki and other community members for a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday morning. Members of the public can stop by after that from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Visitors this weekend much register in advance.
SUN JOURNAL • August 17, 2024
I am supporting Bruce Bryant as a candidate for Senate District 18. Bruce previously served in the Senate and, in 2008, supported the Land for Maine’s Future funds to purchase land. Through his support and the generous voter approval of LMF funds, the town of Woodstock purchased 700 acres known as Buck’s Ledge Community Forest. The trails are free and available for anyone. ~ Jane Chandler, chair, Woodstock Conservation Commission
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 17, 2024
Perseid meteor shower, Northern lights, toads everywhere, purple, orange, red and yellow mushrooms, loon parties, cardinal flowers, ghost pipes, caterpillars.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 17, 2024
Katahdin area residents’ attitudes have softened in the two decades or so since Burt’s Bees founder Roxanne Quimby began buying land next to Baxter State Park and eventually donating it to the National Park Service for what became the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. When Quimby first announced her plans, local sportsmen, timber workers and even some state and federal lawmakers opposed the endeavor. Visitor tallies to the national monument quadrupled in 2017 now topping 40,000 annually. Those numbers, along with the recent construction of a 7,900-square-foot visitor center atop Lookout Mountain, have led many in the region to say the more than 87,000-acre monument is bringing a much needed economic boost to the area.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 16, 2024
Camden residents will soon consider new restrictions on the use of pesticides and herbicides after a local outcry following the illegal use of herbicides by wealthy property owners who applied them to their trees. The proposed rule would require commercial users of those products to notify neighbors before they are applied and to provide an annual report documenting their local usage. Support for the measure has grown after the 2021 case, in which Arthur and Amelia Bond illegally applied the herbicides to trees owned by them and a neighbor in their oceanfront neighborhood. The couple was subsequently required to pay more than $200,000 in fines and fees, and local officials have also found traces of the herbicide at a nearby beachfront park.
MAINE PUBLIC • August 16, 2024
An annual rule change is now in effect for river, stream and brook fishing in Maine. Between now and September 30, anglers can only use artificial lures or flies on rivers, streams, and brooks. The change is to protect landlocked salmon and brook trout as they prepare to spawn, as live bait hooks can injure the fish that are caught and released. Bag limits are now reduced to one brook trout and one landlocked salmon per day per angler to protect the fisheries and provide opportunities for anglers.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 16, 2024
In 2021, Maine took a pioneering step by becoming the first state in the nation to pass an extended producer responsibility for packaging law. It is designed to hold manufacturers accountable for the packaging waste they create. This principle is simple yet transformative: Those who produce waste should bear the cost of its management. We know extended producer responsibility for packaging will work. It’s a proven solution that dozens of places across the world use to successfully cut down on wasteful packaging and increase recycling rates. We encourage Mainers who want to support this new law to submit comments to the Board of Environmental Protection before the Aug. 26 deadline. ~ Senators Nicole Grohoski and Rick Bennett
CENTRAL MAINE • August 16, 2024
I’ve observed, with mixed emotions, the impact of an incident that occurred on Lake George Regional Park’s east access road in June 2023.That incident led to the recent unprecedented dismissal of five volunteers, serving with distinction, on the park’s governing board. The original process by which Louise and Bill Townsend, some of their friends and neighbors, and representatives from the state established Lake George Regional Park created rather than divided the community. The park’s founders modeled a way for individuals to build community, consensus and cooperation. The town officials and citizens of both Canaan and Skowhegan have a vested interest in following their example. ~ Lorraine Harriman
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 16, 2024
Rep. Jared Golden’s negativity about electric vehicles and positivity about oil and gas seems out of place and ill-advised. Pollution and global warming affect everyone. Tailpipe emissions are a major contributor to global warming and air pollution. Also, every gas station has at least one large tank. Some of them leak, and all of them require trucks delivering fuel. This activity involves accidents, spills and all that goes with maintaining and operating fleets of fuel trucks. Surely, distribution of electricity is cleaner and cheaper. Protecting the world we all live in is not a partisan issue, it is a human issue. ~ Leo Carter, Yarmouth
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 16, 2024
Central Maine Power’s parent company is Spanish energy giant Iberdrola. The company wants to buy the remaining 18.4% of shares of Avangrid Inc., making it privately held. CMP has asked the Maine Public Utilities Commission to waive a state law requiring a review of the transaction. It said the deal would have no impact on the electricity supplier’s roughly 636,000 Maine customers. But the Office of the Public Advocate and the Natural Resources Council of Maine have asked the commission to not grant an exemption. They say the takeover would harm ratepayers by limiting the information available to them about Avangrid’s finances, investments and oversight.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 16, 2024
I have solar and I’ve had it for years but no big company will ever come to the western mountains/rural areas. They just say, “Oh, I don’t go there.” And, if people buy all the equipment, as I do, electricians commonly say “Oh, I don’t do solar.” Electricians can do solar. We need to encourage companies to help the folks in the western mountains/northern reaches get access to solar. ~ Jean Antonucci, Portland
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 16, 2024
Approximately 30 shorebird species pop up somewhere in our state every year, and they can look annoyingly similar. No wonder some frustrated birders just tear out the shorebird pages from the field guide and give up. To better identify a shorebird, don’t identify it. First, assess what you’re looking at, and make a judgment about size, shape and location. Sort it into a pile with similar shorebirds. Then, instead of sorting through 30 birds, you’re only picking it out of half a dozen or so. To tell apart all the similar-looking shorebirds, there are plenty of field guides available. ~ Bob Duchesne
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 16, 2024
As the wild blueberry harvest rolls in across Maine, pickers and customers may find rare surprises in their pint boxes: small white or pink berries that look unripe but don’t taste like it. These unusual berries are the result of the genetic diversity in the state’s vast wild blueberry fields. Most bear fruit in shades of blue, with variations of light and dark. Light purple, pink or white berries lack the pigment that gives most berries their color, similar to albinism.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • August 15, 2024
Federal fishing managers are promoting the use of ropeless gear in the lobster and crab fishing industries because of the plight of North Atlantic right whales. The whales number less than 360, and they face existential threats from entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with large ships. The federal government is committing nearly $10 million to saving right whales, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Tuesday. Nearly $7 million of that will support the development of ropeless gear by providing funds to fishing industry members to assess and provide feedback on the technology.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 15, 2024
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland visited the midcoast town of Newcastle on Thursday to meet with local officials about the possibility of turning the Frances Perkins Homestead into a national monument. The area is the former home of Frances Perkins, the first female Cabinet member and a crusader for workers’ rights in the early to mid 1900s. National monument status would help the Frances Perkins Center share her story with more people. The designation would turn the homestead into federal property and make it eligible for congressional funds. The national attention would also help bring more economic assistance to preserve the land. Anyone who would like to show support for the designation can sign the organization’s petition.
