Blog Entry

Grand Manan, the Dulse Capital of the World

by Natalie Springuel Over the holidays this year, my family and I decided it was time for a trip beyond Downeast Maine. We crossed the border at Calais and drove on to Black’s Harbor, New Brunswick (Canada) to catch the ferry to Grand Manan, an island at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. I’d […]

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Sea Smoke

by Catherine Schmitt If the air is still and cold enough, great wisps of sea smoke hover and drift above the water surface. That “smoke” actually is water vapor that forms when really cold air moves over relatively warmer water and the thin boundary layer of warm air just above the surface. When the evaporating […]

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Homes for People Who Work in York

by Kristen Grant Design workshops that bring community stakeholders together with housing professionals are an annual event now in Maine. In October Maine Sea Grant partnered with the Workforce Housing Coalition of the Greater Seacoast to host a workforce housing “charrette” (intensive design workshop) at a site off Route 1 near the Kittery border in […]

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Maine Beaches Conference logo

Celebrating #10 – The 2015 Maine Beaches Conference

by Kristen Grant I would attend again because it is a treasure trove of important information for anyone who loves Maine Beaches or Maine in general. – a 2013 conference evaluator Back again for another encore performance is the 2015 Maine Beaches Conference, being held July 17, 2015 at Southern Maine Community College. The event started […]

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A black boot on a mass of squid fingers on a rock.

Squid Fingers

by Catherine Schmitt While out on the Damariscotta River this morning in search of wild oysters at low tide (more on that story later), we came across this giant, gelatinous mass on the shore of Goose Ledge. None of us, not even the one who is on the water every day, had ever seen anything […]

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On Jellyfish

by Catherine Schmitt News media and Sea Grant’s coastal correspondents (a.k.a. the Marine Extension Team) have been reporting jellyfish sightings along the coast, from Casco Bay to Penobscot Bay to Frenchman Bay. I saw them, too—a parade of moon jellies moving up the Damariscotta River. The tide was going out and the jellies were coming in, […]

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an underwater photo of swimming alewives

Learning about river herring in Downeast Maine

by Chris Bartlett I had the pleasure of assisting the town of Pembroke, Maine with monitoring alewife and blueback herring this spring. These two fish species are jointly known as river herring. They migrate from the ocean to spawn in Maine’s freshwater lakes and rivers during the months of May and June. Alewife and bluebacks […]

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Summer’s Here

by Esperanza Stancioff I found this little guy on a hike in Camden Hills last summer. It was a thrilling experience and a rare occurrence for me. I remembered my mom telling me as a child that I would get warts from handling them—which is not the case. The American toad does produce a toxin […]

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Atlantic salmon smolt - a silvery fish about seven inches long

Counting smolts in May: a story of Atlantic salmon survival.

by Catherine Schmitt May 16, 2014, Endangered Species Day. I went to the Piscataquis River, a major tributary of the Penobscot River, to monitor Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) smolts with state and federal fish biologists. Shadbush and trout lilies bloomed along the stream banks. People sold fiddleheads from the trunks of their cars. Nearly 70 […]

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Maine and The Mortal Sea

by Catherine Schmitt Multiple departments from the University of Maine came together on Saturday to discuss Jeffrey Bolster’s book, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail. Hosted by the History Department, Sustainability Solutions Initiative at the Senator George J. Mitchell Center, School of Marine Sciences, Humanities Initiative, and Maine Sea Grant, […]

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