The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
MAINE PUBLIC • November 12, 2025
A Belfast conservation group has purchased the site of the proposed Nordic Aquafarms salmon farm, according to a press release. Penobscot Bay Waterkeeper, formerly known as Upstream Watch, spearheaded opposition to the project. The group raised $1.5 million this year to fund the purchase, and will conserve the 54-acre property. Nordic Aquafarms dropped its bid to build the on-shore aquaculture facility in January, after several legal challenges.
MAINE MORNING STAR • November 12, 2025
For 35 years, Charles and Linda Gill have run a family farm in Bowdoinham. While initially focused on cut flowers and herbs, they shifted to growing hemp after regulated production was legalized. “We are not in the business of these intoxicating hemp products on the market, which are the ones that are screwing it up for everybody,” Charles Gill said. “They’re abusing the system.” Charles Gill is referring to companies exploiting a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp production, which he thinks should be closed, as do many other hemp farmers in Maine. But they say the way the federal government has proposed to do so would would decimate the industry. A provision tucked into the deal to reopen the federal government would drastically lower the allowable threshold for legal THC products. After passing the U.S. Senate on Monday, it awaits the approval of the U.S. House of Representatives. President Donald Trump supports the language.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 12, 2025
A woman shared a video of a bald eagle that her husband had taken with his cell phone while fishing. In the video, a bald eagle flew down to the water’s surface, snatched up a fish, then flew off. “My husband found [a feather from the eagle] and gave it to our son as a present,” she said. I knew that it was illegal to possess a bald eagle feather without a federal permit. It is a federal Class A misdemeanor with a $100,000 fine. The parents left the decision to the boy about what to do with the feather. He decided to turn it over to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Service. I know the boy was sad to turn over the feather, but I noticed that both the dad and the boy seemed to stand a little taller as they walked away, with the father’s hand on his son’s shoulder. ~ Richard Spinney
CENTRAL MAINE • November 11, 2025
I taught myself how to catch lobster, fix an engine and keep my business afloat when everything’s working against me. Maine’s lobster fishery is at a tipping point. We need our leaders to fight alongside us, not with the big-money, foreign-controlled industrial fishing fleets tearing our fisheries apart. That’s not what happened recently at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. They voted with the big boats in the face of data showing that the Atlantic menhaden fishery and everything it supports, including our fishery, is in trouble. We need those fish for bait in the lobster fishery. Striped bass are in big trouble, too. They can recover if we leave more menhaden in the water for them to eat. Lobbyists convinced NOAA to give their industrial fleet millions in “disaster relief” for the disaster they created. All we got was higher bait prices. Our leaders need to fight for us by eliminating industrial fishing for baitfish. ~ Knoep Nieuwkerk, Kennebunk
TROUT UNLIMITED • Nov 10, 2025
A long-time resident of Farmingdale, Maine, Steve Brooke has been a tireless advocate for the state’s coldwater resources, his passion for trout and Atlantic salmon driving his efforts to work — alongside many others — toward their protection. He’s seen some defeats, and many victories. Brooke said, “It doesn’t really matter who gets credit for something as long as the job gets done. Just keep working very hard along the way.” In the 1980s, Brooke became an active member of TU’s Kennebec Valley chapter. He joined the movement calling for the removal of Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River. The dam came down in 1999. Brooke worked for years alongside other river advocates as they turned their attention to the next four dams on the river. In September, the Nature Conservancy announced that it reached an agreement with the dams’ owner, power company Brookfield, to purchase the four dams. They will eventually be decommissioned and removed.
SUN JOURNAL • November 10, 2025
The destruction of the Narrow Gauge Snowmobile Club’s Tucker Sno-Cat groomer occurred over the weekend and the club president is pretty sure it was a targeted assault. In fact, he has deemed it sabotage. “Our Tucker Sno-Cat groomer was deliberately and maliciously destroyed by what is clearly a person or group of people intent on our club’s demise this season,” is how Club President Christopher Gavin described it. According to Gavin, more than a gallon of mud, sand and water was poured into the big machine’s exhaust pipe to destroy its motor. Without the groomer the club will be unable to maintain its nearly 60 miles of trails this season.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 10, 2025
The Portland City Council unanimously voted to join a lawsuit against developers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, on Monday night. PFAS are a class of synthetic chemicals that have been used in a multitude of products including firefighting foams, nonstick cookware and water-resistant fabrics for decades. They are sometimes called “forever chemicals,” because they do not break down easily in the environment and can accumulate in soil, water, and the human body. The decision to join the lawsuit makes Portland part of the multidistrict litigation over PFAS contamination, which consolidates hundreds of lawsuits against chemical manufacturers in federal court.
NEWS CENTER MAINE • November 10, 2025
Western states have seen terrible forest and wildland fires in recent years, but Maine normally gets enough rain to minimize fire danger. This year has been different. As drought became severe in many parts of the state and then extreme in some, the Maine Forest Service was getting prepared. “Everything, from surface fuel to deep ground fuels, were very dry, very available to burn,” Joe Mints, director of forest fire training for the Maine Forest Service, said. This year, he says, rivaled the worst fire year in Maine’s modern history. “This year [has been] as close as we’ve been to the conditions of 1947.” And while the forest service once relied on a network of fire towers around Maine to watch the woods, there are now fire-spotting satellites. It was, in fact, a busy year for fires in Maine. There were 828 wildfires reported so far this year, but those fires burned a total of just 512 acres.
MAINE PUBLIC • November 10, 2025
Maine held its first Green Schools Symposium last week at Thomas College in Waterville. More than 400 educators, students and officials came together Friday as part of the 'Green Schools Network.' Attendees formed working groups to generate ideas on outdoor education, sustainability in schools, green infrastructure in school buildings and more. Glenn Cummings, Green Schools Director at the Department of Education, said that despite the environment being a popular subject in an outdoor state like Maine, there are still some districts where there's only one person teaching climate. "We don't want those people to feel alone," he said. "They want to feel like they can be part of a larger network, and they can get resources, they can get conversations going, and they can get support for each other that allows them to just be more effective."
MAINE ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS • November 10, 2025
Dr. Barry Logan, professor of Natural Sciences at Bowdoin College, presents the third in a series of six talks about Back Cove. Hosted by Osher Map Library. At University of Southern Maine, Glickman Family Library, November 15, 2025, 1-2:30 p.m.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 10, 2025
It’s likely to be your average Maine winter. Forecasts by the National Weather Service call for routine winter temperatures, not too much hotter or colder than Mainers have come to expect between December and March. Precipitation is also expected to be about average, though if it teeters in one direction, it likely will be on the dry side.
SUN JOURNAL • November 10, 2025
Snowshoe clubs first emerged in 1925, the brainchild of journalist, sportsman and future Lewiston mayor Louis-Philippe Gagné. A recent immigrant, he wanted French Canadians and their Franco-American descendants to better know and understand one another. A proponent of snowshoe diplomacy, Gagné asserted that “…the most efficient diplomacy for good relationship […] and the best good-neighbor lie in a man-made product called a snowshoe. It makes you happy, healthy, and with it you become acquainted with the joy of living.” His hobby became a cultural movement that spread throughout the New England states and Canada. ~ Jonathan Gosnell, chair of French studies, Smith College
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 10, 2025
A new state program allows farmers to increase hunting on their land by giving them extra free permits to use or distribute. It reflects the threat that increasing deer populations are posing to Maine’s agricultural economy. The Deer Management Assistance Program through the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife offers the permits to commercial growers who are seeing significant crop damage from deer. Farmers said they believe it’s an overdue step in the right direction, but it’s going to take more than that to make a dent in the destruction.
DAILY BULLDOG • November 9, 2025
Between 2024 and 2025, the average electricity bill for Mainers jumped 36.3%. For the poorest Mainers, this isn’t an inconvenience — it’s a brutal choice between heat, food, or medicine. Maine’s affordability crisis didn’t just happen. It’s been the result of deliberate policy choices — and they’ve made electricity both more expensive and less reliable. The Governor and Legislature have prioritized wind and solar, though neither can affordably or reliably power our state. That is why we need an energy policy that prioritizes keeping the lights on and power the innovations that make our state successful. Without it, Mainers risk spending even more of their hard-earned money on high energy costs. ~ Matt Jacobsen, North Yarmouth
NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY • November 9, 2025
A feared backwoods trapper turned murderer vanished into the woods in western Maine 175 years ago, leaving behind bodies, panic, and a mystery that was never solved.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 9, 2025
As golden hour descended over Wolfe’s Neck Center in Freeport late Saturday, Luke Myers geared up for his fourth time hosting a Climate Change Theatre Action event. Over the course of the early evening, a large group gathered to watch six live theatre productions, all centered around climate change. It was part of an initiative by Climate Change Theater Action, where around 50 playwrights from all over the world write short climate change plays to be shared in small productions. The productions always include a climate action element. “I think climate change is the biggest issue facing humanity for our lifetime,” Myers said.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 9, 2025
A fire at the Irving Forest Products sawmill in Dixfield caused heavy damage to part of a building Saturday. No one was hurt. Irving Forest Products bought the Dixfield sawmill in 1998 and has invested more than $40 million into the mill. The Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • November 9, 2025
After years of lawsuits and false starts, Portland has finally reclaimed the 3.25 acres known as the Midtown properties. This rare chance for a reset is a test of Portland’s resolve to build a community worthy of all the values we envision for our unique small city. We must prove on this last significant peninsula parcel of public land that we have learned from past mistakes of rushing to cede civic decisions to the balance-sheets of potential buyers. A park at Midtown would not displace anyone, but would anchor all the surrounding concentrated housing to sustain livability for generations. Smart growth serves the people. Portland does not have to pit one priority against another. With over 140,000 square feet back in citizen hands, we can create hundreds of new homes, while reserving some of our land for a public park in the most logical place. ~ Thomas Blackburn, Bayside Neighborhood Association, and Camelia Babson-Haley, Youth & Family Outreach
MAINE MONITOR • November 8, 2025
According to the National Weather Service, “overall conditions are still running significantly below normal, with most of the region running between 30 percent to 60 percent of normal” rainfall. Allyson Hill, the director of the Oxford County Emergency Management Association, said she has been hearing reports of homeowners refilling their wells from local water sources. Water gets into wells from the water table in the ground. It is then filtered through sand and clay and rocks. Dumping water into a well bypasses those natural filters, according to Hill, and can introduce bacteria and water into a home. “You should never pour,” Hill said. There is another complication looming. Once the ground freezes, drought conditions are usually locked in until spring because water cannot dissipate down to wells when the ground is frozen.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 8, 2025
A project to build a new quarter-mile road to a site where the state plans to construct a new $55 million judicial center could lead to other improvements and developments around the courthouse site, Ellsworth officials said. A parking lot for the Down East Sunrise Trail could finally be built in Ellsworth near the new courthouse site. The nearest public parking for the roughly 90-mile trail, which extends east from Ellsworth to Pembroke in Washington County, currently is three miles away. The courthouse development also opens the possibility of building public access into the Card Brook wetland. If the city gets an easement on part of the state-owned courthouse property, it would look into building a boardwalk trail.
