News & Notes

Browsing posts tagged with: habitat connectivity

MPBN’s Maine Watch – “Fish Passages”

Posted on: Monday, April 29th, 2013

As the last of our spring Stream-Smart workshops wrapped up this week two directors from Keeping Maine's Forests, Tom Rumpf of The Nature Conservancy, and Patrick Strauch of the Maine Forest Products Council discussed efforts to replace existing culverts with those more amenable to fish passage on MPBN's Maine Watch.

The Stream Smart program is designed for professionals who are responsible for road - stream crossings and helps promote better designs for stream crossings that protect roads, safety and habitat.

Watch the segment:

Watch Genetically Modified Food / Fish Passages on PBS. See more from Maine Watch with Jennifer Rooks.

 

Stream Crossings – Wildlife Barriers

Posted on: Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

The results of Maine Audubon and The Nature Conservancy, Maine’s survey of stream crossings on Northern Maine roads are in and they’re very concerning.

With nearly 1,000 stream crossings reviewed, the survey found that about 40% of stream crossings in some watersheds are barriers to fish and wildlife movement at all times of year, and about 90% are barriers for at least part of the year. In addition, many of these crossings are vulnerable to washouts during increasingly high rainfall events resulting from a warming climate.

The two-person survey crew worked for 17 weeks and recorded data from 586 sites in the Upper Kennebec and 413 sites in the Meduxnekeag watersheds. Four high school students from New York City assisted the crew during the month of July—a great chance to help these students explore the field of conservation first hand. The next step in this important project will be mapping and prioritizing which sites should be repaired first in order to restore the most extensive and best quality aquatic habitat, and we will be sharing that data with interested landowners and municipalities so they can seek funding and make plans for needed repairs.

We thank the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust for funding and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for technical support.

- Sally Stockwell

 

New resource shows high-value habitat connectors

Posted on: Thursday, September 27th, 2012

Wood turtle, photo by Tom Hodgman

In Maine, we are lucky to have many large and small patches of valuable habitat for wildlife. Conserving these habitat pieces is vital to ensuring that wildlife populations in the state remain healthy–but so is protecting the connections between them.

Beginning with Habitat’s Map #3–Habitat Blocks and Habitat Connections–has new information about where the best habitat connections are in each town. Maine Audubon’s newly published fact sheet Conserving Maine’s Wildlife Habitat Connections accompanies the map and is now available to download.


 

 

Recent and Ongoing … Road Ecology and Maine Wildlife

Posted on: Thursday, April 12th, 2012

This has been a busy month for stream and road ecology. Here are a few programs we worked on and one which could use your help.

Alex Abbott, U.S. Fish & Wildlife presenter at our 4th fully booked workshop on stream crossings demonstrating the differences in culvert design and the downstream impact.

 

Conserving Maine’s Wildlife On and Along Roads

Posted on: Thursday, April 5th, 2012
Related Documents

Wildlife Biologist and GIS Manager Barbara Charry appeared on MPBN’s Maine Watch with Jennifer Rooks .

Barbara discusses the proposal for an east – west highway across Maine between Calais and Coburn Gore. Of particular concern to Maine Audubon are the impacts to wildlife and wildlife habitat caused by a new highway and high levels of traffic.
The show aired on MPBN Television at 8:00 pm, Thursday April 5, 2012. The show rebroadcasts on Friday evenings at 9:00 pm and Sunday afternoons at 5:00 pm. An audio version of the program airs on MPBN Radio at 12:30 pm on Friday afternoons.

Watch: MPBN provides the ability to watch the show on it’s website here, and you may download the show as a podcast.

Barbara Charry is a Wildlife Biologist and GIS Manager at Maine Audubon. Over the last 12 years, the focus her work has been the impacts of sprawling development on Maine’s wildlife, particularly roads.

She became a state leader in this work in 2001 when Maine Audubon became a founding partner of Maine’s nationally acclaimed Beginning with Habitat program, an innovative public/private partnership that provides practical tools for Maine communities to incorporate wildlife and habitat conservation into local land use planning.

Under Barbara’s leadership, Maine Audubon convened the first-ever state-wide conference on road ecology in Maine.  She has written several guides for land use decision makers and community members on the impacts of development on wildlife including a community conservation guide, “Conserving Wildlife On and Around Maine Roads”.