The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
PENOBSCOT BAY PILOT • February 9, 2025
Nick Dorian, Ph.D. ecologist and educator, talks about “The Secret Lives of Wild Bees,” presented by Camden Garden Club, in coordination with the Camden Public Library, Feb. 11, from 9:30 a.m. On Zoom, preregister.
AZ ANIMALS • February 9, 2025
There are about 320,000 deer in Maine. According to the Boone and Crocket Club, in 1965 Ronnie Cox earned the record for the largest whitetail deer harvested in Maine’s history. His trophy scored 193-2/8. Then-teenager Hill Gould shot the non-typical whitetail deer more than a century ago, in 1910. His buck’s antlers earned a score of 259. Word spread pretty quickly about the deer’s impressive and usual rack, but it didn’t enter the Boone and Crockett record books officially until 1994.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 9, 2025
For many who live in towns like Madawaska, the result isn’t two distinct worlds but one community. External forces are threatening to pull that world apart. Economists have warned that the impacts of President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs would reverberate through the American and global economies in ways big and small. Maine’s border towns, whose fortunes are closely tied to sister communities in Canada, will feel the effects acutely. Tariffs won’t just make everyday goods more expensive on both sides of the border, but may also cost the town’s millworkers their jobs. Across the border, greater Edmundston is a bustling metropolis compared with Madawaska. Judy Paradis, who represented Madawaska in the Legislature for years, said, “Canada has been so good to us — they don’t deserve this.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 8, 2025
Public health experts say they are worried about access to important federal health data after agencies removed information in the last few weeks. Rebecca Boulos, executive director of the Maine Public Health Association, said, “We rely on data sources to help us understand what’s going on in public health.” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, spoke out against the cap Monday, saying the “poorly conceived” directive.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 8, 2025
The Trump administration is rescinding federal funding to build electric vehicle chargers, leaving in doubt $4 million for Maine to build out a network. Transportation is responsible for 49% of Maine’s carbon emissions from fossil fuels, making the sector one of the state’s largest opportunities to combat climate change. A group of Maine environmentalists and a youth organization have sued the state, accusing officials of failing to comply with targets for reduced greenhouse gas emissions by not adopting policies broadening EV use. President Donald Trump’s action against the chargers is part of a broader policy of favoring fossil fuel production and halting zero-carbon initiatives. An executive order he issued jeopardizes Maine’s efforts to develop an offshore wind.
INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS • February 8, 2025
In the remote northern half of Maine, forests dominate the landscape. While few people live in what’s known as “unorganized territory,” timber companies control vast swaths of land there and frequently harvest trees for housing, furniture, paper and more. But technology is revealing hidden gems in this part of the state. Dr. John Hagan, president of the nonprofit Our Climate Common, has recently begun using light detection and ranging, or LiDAR, to find patches of biodiverse old-growth forest. He said, “If you shoot LiDAR at the forest from an airplane, it gives you a three-dimensional signature of the forest. And it turns out, that can tell us exactly where the old forest is. About 4 percent of that 10 million acres is old-growth forest. So not very much percentage wise, but that’s about 400,000 acres that you didn’t know you had, and you don’t want to lose.”
FORECASTER • February 7, 2025
The Royal River Conservation Trust has appointed Chris Franklin, an experienced land conservationist, as its new executive director. “I look at this as a great opportunity,” said Franklin, who is 57 and lives in North Yarmouth with his wife and three children. “I think the communities in the watershed really would like to see more open space preservation, more habitat protection, more working farms. Royal River (Conservation Trust) is really well positioned to be a catalyst for that.” Founded in 1988, the Yarmouth-based Royal River Conservation Trust works to conserve and steward 6,140 acres of land in the Royal River watershed across the municipalities Yarmouth, North Yarmouth, Auburn, Durham, Gray, New Gloucester and Pownal.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 7, 2025
The state Department of Environmental Protection is proposing a $50 million bond to help wastewater treatment facilities buy the costly equipment needed to reduce the volume of sewage sludge headed to the state-owned landfill before it runs out of room by 2040. The proposal to bond funding for grants to help local sewer districts tackle the statewide sludge-disposal problem needs approval by a legislative committee and two-thirds of the House and Senate before it could be sent to voters in November.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 7, 2025
After almost two years in limbo, a defamation lawsuit Maine lobstering groups filed against a California aquarium can move forward, a federal judge ruled Friday. The Maine Lobsterman’s Association, the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association and three lobster businesses sued the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation in 2023 after the organization’s Seafood Watch program put lobster on a “red list” of seafood consumers should avoid. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation argued that it has a right to make its rating based on Maine’s free speech laws. But Maine lobstermen have said that the red listing not only is false but also has caused significant economic harm to them and the Maine lobster brand.
CNN • February 7, 2025
An Italian lawmaker has filed a legal complaint for hunting without a license against Donald Trump Jr. and his hunting party. The president’s son is accused of shooting a protected rare duck in the Venice Lagoon. It comes after video surfaced showing him surrounded by dead birds he and his group allegedly shot in a protected conservation area. The dead birds appear to include an orange-brown ruddy shelduck, which is protected under Italian law. A spokesperson for Trump Jr. said the president’s son had the necessary authorizations to hunt.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 7, 2025
Husson University will launch two new bachelor of science degrees in fall 2025, expanding the opportunities available to students in Maine and nationally. The BS in wildlife biology and conservation program will launch as both an online degree and an on-campus degree, while the bachelor of science in professional health sciences program will join the university’s popular online degree programs.
KENNEBEC JOURNAL • February 7, 2025
Monroe’s 39 square miles are home to a wealth of natural beauty, from woods and wetlands to farms and fields, all nestled amid low, rolling hills. That’s reason enough to make the pleasant drive, but when you discover there are great hiking trails to be enjoyed, as I did recently thanks to a tip from a friend, you consult your Gazetteer and go. Northern Pond Natural Area is considered “the jewel of Monroe” by many in the area. ~ Carey Kish
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 7, 2025
City officials have halted a nearly finished tree removal project by the Portland International Jetport along Interstate 295 that may have violated municipal, state and federal land use regulations. A jetport contractor began removing trees last week to clear a runway approach as required by the Federal Aviation Administration. The project was approved by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, which owns the property in a wooded area to the rear of Calvary Cemetery. But it’s unclear whether the work has complied with a site plan issued by city planners in 2019; a municipal tree protection ordinance approved in 2022; or wetlands protection laws overseen by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 7, 2025
Accipiters are a family of hawks that primarily hunt small woodland birds. They have relatively short wings, enabling them to accelerate quickly. They have long tails that act like rudders, allowing them to maneuver swiftly through forests. They hunt by ambush, flashing in suddenly to snatch an unwary victim. There are three accipiter species in North America. Maine has all three. Sharp-shinned hawks are the smallest. Cooper’s hawks are medium-sized. American goshawks are brutes, roughly the size of a red-tailed hawk. ~ Bob Duchesne
MAINE MORNING STAR • February 7, 2025
Thanks to a $60 million allocation in the 2021 state budget, the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry has developed a program to assist farmers and respond to high levels of PFAS in agricultural land. In the years since, the department has made significant progress on those efforts and learned that most contaminated farms can remain viable with the proper support, said Beth Valentine, director of the department’s PFAS Fund. LD 130 would enshrine in statute Maine’s existing response program for PFAS contamination on farmland, which has been touted as a national leader. The PFAS Response program currently has seven full-time staff members who provide technical and financial assistance to more than 80 farms with varying levels of contamination.
AZ PUBLIC MEDIA • February 7, 2025
Environmentalists say that a new order issued this week by the new Interior Secretary puts national monuments at risk. On Monday, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a Secretarial Order, prompting an internal review of agency actions related to oil, gas, and mining regulations on public lands. The order requires all assistant secretaries to submit an action plan within 15 days, outlining how to comply with President Trump’s Executive Order, Unleashing American Energy.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 6, 2025
Maine lawmakers on Thursday began to dig into the details of how to charge less to electricity ratepayers who plug in an electric vehicle in the middle of the night or run a washing machine before breakfast. The concept, called time-of-use rates, incentivizes people to use electricity at odd hours to reduce the load on the region’s electric grid. Reducing the load frees up the grid to accommodate greater use of electric vehicles, heat pumps and other electrification to replace fossil fuels. It would also reduce the need to upgrade or build costly transmission lines that are billed to ratepayers.
SUN JOURNAL • February 6, 2025
Auburn announced Thursday that it has hired David Hediger as its new planning director. Hediger has more than 20 years experience in comprehensive planning, code enforcement and project management. He previously served as director of planning and code enforcement for Lewiston, leading municipal planning initiatives and managing zoning and land use regulations. Most recently, he was a senior planner for the Land for Maine’s Future program.
MACHIAS VALLEY NEWS OBSERVER • February 6, 2025
I’m headed to Augusta for a Feb. 6 public hearing of some consequence to Washington County, rural Maine, the 2nd Congressional District, and Maine as a whole. LD 183, An Act to Cap Publicly Owned Land Area at No More than 50 Percent of Any County, is sponsored by House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, and the entire Washington County delegation. Regardless of how much of Maine is actually in Public Conservation Ownership, the 30% goal cannot be achieved without continuing to emphasize acquisitions in the 2nd Congressional District. LD 183 is the first of three bills Leader Faulkingham has submitted in response to the climate alarmist policies being promulgated by Governor Mills and the Democrats. The other two address the fundamental lack of honesty, transparency, and effectiveness in our climate alarmist policies. ~ Jonathan Reisman
PUBLIC NEWS SERVICE • February 6, 2025
A small forage fish near the bottom of the food chain has a significant effect on the survival of several iconic predators along the Atlantic Seaboard, including striped bass, bluefish and ospreys. A coalition of conservation groups is supporting a renewed push for studies on the ecology, fishery impacts and economic significance of the Atlantic menhaden. Jaclyn Higgins, forage fish program manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, said scientists lack current data on the number and condition of menhaden fisheries. "This is the largest fishery on the Atlantic coast. It's the third-largest fishery by volume in the U.S..”
