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SRP Director Charles Duncan To Be Succeeded by Stephen Brown

At the beginning of November, longtime Shorebird Recovery Project Director Charles Duncan will step down and will be succeeded by Director of Shorebird Science Stephen Brown.   Duncan has led the SRP for a decade and said that he wants to step back and “reconfigure” his career.   Manomet President John Hagan praised Duncan’s work, especially in extending the geographic reach of the program and collaborating with local partners.   “As director of the Executive Office of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, he helped add 32 new sites, more than 7.5 million acres,” Hagan said. “WHSRN has become a global model of how to engage people on a voluntary basis to do big things. All of that is a...

Walberg Presents Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

As landowners grapple with the daunting complexity of climate change adaptation, infrastructure issues – such as access roads and water crossings – provide a direct intersection between climate change impacts and private land management decisions.   This was one of the lessons that Manomet Senior Program Leader Eric Walberg shared with the Gulf of Maine Council’s Climate Network during a conference earlier this month.   Walberg talked about lessons learned from Manomet’s climate change adaptation planning at the Allen Whitney Memorial Forest in Maine and at Tidmarsh Farms in Massachusetts.   The conference featured speakers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and many other organizations.   Walberg also told...

Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier: Green crabs a sign the tide is turning

This article was originally published in The Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier (Maine) on September 5, 2013. It was written by Ben Meiklejohn. View the original article here. SCARBOROUGH, MAINE – About 50 people attended a public presentation sponsored by the Scarborough Conservation Commission Aug. 28 to learn about the possible impact of a global rise in sea level on the Scarborough Marsh. Marine geologist Pete Slovinsky of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry presented projection scenarios for rises in sea level from one to 6.5 feet over the next century. Scarborough is also part of the Sea Level Adaptation Working Group, which has worked since 2009 on sea level and storm issues in Saco Bay communities, including Saco, Biddeford and...

keepMEcurrent.com: Planners ‘test the waters’ on Scarborough Marsh migration

This article was originally published on keepMEcurrent.com on September 4, 2013. It was written by Duke Harrington. View the original article here. SCARBOROUGH, MAINE – Steve Stracqualursi doesn’t need a government-funded study to tell him things are changing in the waters around Scarborough. “I catch more crabs than fish now. They grab right on to the line,” he said last week at a Town Hall forum held to discuss the impacts of sea level rise. Stracqualursi, one of about 60 residents to attend the session, was referring to the growing numbers of European green crab, which can take over native clam flats. But this summer also has seen an explosion in Asian shore crab, which burrow into sandy areas, killing marsh...

Maine Waters Particularly Vulnerable to Climate Change, Report Says

Researchers believe that climate change will cause 44 percent of Maine’s landscape to change to a different kind of habitat over the next hundred years, the highest percentage of any state.   A new report – available online today – provides sharper detail on which habitats will be heavily impacted by climate change and what stressors they will face. “Climate Change and Biodiversity in Maine: A Climate Change Exposure Summary for Species and Key Habitats” was a collaboration between Manomet, The Nature Conservancy, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Maine Audubon Society, the Maine Natural Areas Program and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.   “We produced this report to create a baseline of information for wildlife biologists...

Scientific Expedition in Mexico Discovers Shorebird Wintering Site

A Manomet-led expedition earlier this year in Oaxaca, Mexico, discovered a previously unknown wintering site for Red Knots.   The expedition took place in February and was led by Dr. Eduardo Palacios, program coordinator for Northwest Mexico with Manomet’s Shorebird Recovery Project. The team discovered about 200 Red Knots (Calidris canutus) at Laguna Superior in Oaxaca.   "The key and inescapable new finding of this research is that there is a population segment of Red Knots wintering in Oaxaca that connects to Texas during northbound migration on the way to the breeding grounds," Palacios said.   In February 2012, birdwatchers in Oaxaca reported seeing three Red Knots that had been banded in Texas. The observers also reported frequently seeing as...

Building a Future for Fishing in Downeast Maine

The communities of coastal Maine depend on fishing, but the industry has been in trouble since stocks of groundfish species like cod, haddock and flounder collapsed over 20 years ago.     Prey species like herring and alewives are also in serious decline, Atlantic salmon are listed as endangered and shad and smelt are listed as species of concern. The fishery is far less diverse than it once was and the coastal economy is primarily dependent on the lobster fishery.   Manomet has partnered with two Maine nonprofits, the Downeast Salmon Federation and the Penobscot East Resource Center, to form the Downeast Fisheries Partnership, a regional effort to restore productive and diverse fisheries in Downeast Maine.   On July 30th, Manomet held an...

Coats Island Researchers Check Whimbrel Stopover Point

Before Manomet researchers left Coats Island in Hudson Bay this summer, the team examined a nearby site that was recently discovered as a possible staging location for Whimbrels during their migration from the Arctic to South America.   Manomet’s Brad Winn has worked with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Center for Conservation Biology over the past few years to put satellite transmitters on Whimbrels.   Winn and the partner organizations observed that one of the birds stopped on Coats Island in two different years after nesting in Canada’s Northwest Territories. The bird spent about a month on the island before undertaking a 4,000-mile journey over the Atlantic Ocean to the north coast of Brazil.   “We knew...

Arctic Research Expeditions Finish with a Rare Sight

As the short Arctic summer draws to a close and Manomet’s researchers finish their expeditions, the team at the Canning River Delta on the north slope of Alaska has made a rare find – a Semipalmated Sandpiper that was previously banded by New Jersey Audubon in Brazil.   Considering that just over a thousand of these tiny shorebirds are banded in Brazil each year out of a total global population of 2.25 million, the probability of the Canning team seeing one are about one in 1,800, according to researcher Ian Davies.   “The odds are definitely stacked against us, but apparently not too severely to stop us from seeing one,” he wrote in a recent blog post.   Even more...

Presentation in Bar Harbor on Restoring Downeast Maine’s Fisheries

With sharp declines in fish populations and severe federal restrictions on allowable catch, the New England fishing industry is in dire straits. Last month, the Boston Globe reported that the number of federally licensed groundfishing boats in the Northeast had fallen from 1,019 to 344 between 2001 and 2011.   On July 30th Manomet will hold an event in Bar Harbor, Maine, to introduce the Downeast Fisheries Partnership, a regional partnership focused on restoring healthy fisheries and fishing communities in Downeast Maine.   In eastern Maine the fishing industry is crucially important, according to Manomet’s Anne Hayden.   Manomet is working with two other Maine nonprofits, the Penobscot East Resource Center and the Downeast Salmon Federation.   “Fishing is responsible for feeding...