It�s officially spring so that means it�s time to check on your local streams, explore water quality, and find bugs! We�re kicking off a new Stream Explorer season and recruiting community scientists who can help survey large aquatic insects (macroinvertebrates) in Maine streams. If that sounds interesting to you, there are two ways you can […]
Clean Water
New soft plastic lure project invites anglers to gather data
Have you ever thought about the fish you are catching�or eating? And wondered what that fish had been eating? Soft plastic fishing lures are a popular and common tackle used extensively across Maine. These lures imitate worms, frogs, and other natural baits by moving more freely through the water than a hard plastic lure. Soft […]
Raising Awareness About Neonics In Maine
Maine Audubon is working with experts and activists to find avenues to pesticide policy reform. Neonicotinoids, or neonics for short, are some of the most widely used and promoted pesticides on the planet. They kill insects, all of them, and are sprayed from planes, coated on seeds, and otherwise broadcast throughout virtually every cultivated (i.e., […]
Stream Explorers Goes to School
On a beautiful fall day with 70 degree temperatures, Maine Audubon educators took our conservation program, Stream Explorers, to Sanford Middle School. The week before our visit, we went into the classroom and practiced using the nets and identifying macroinvertebrates. By sampling the stream and identifying the macroinvertebrates, the students would be able to tell […]
Guest blog post: Stream Explorers Opens Doors
�The door will be opened to those who are bold enough to knock.� (Tony Gaskins) My name is Aroha Walsh, and the Stream Explorers has done many things in the past few months that inspire me to be a better person. The Stream Explorers program aims to test the pollution in streams by looking at […]
Recapping an Exciting and Important Legislative Session
The 130th Maine Legislature has nearly completed the work of their second session, with many conservation wins to show for it. From expanding biodiversity protection on public lands, to limiting sprawl across the state, to reducing conflict between boats and wildlife, meaningful environmental policy development was a priority this session for Maine lawmakers. We achieved […]
New Bill to Protect Water Quality in the Presumpscot (and Beyond)
Fifty years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, our fight to protect clean water in Maine continues. There was a public hearing on February 28 on LD 1964, a bill to reclassify certain waterways in Maine to reflect their improved status. This happens every three years, when the Maine Department of Environmental Protection […]
Celebrate Your Watershed This Week
Maine�s watersheds provide us with incredibly rich ways to learn about our ecology, culture, economy, and the connections amongst and between them. For millennia, animals have migrated to Maine�s rivers from around the world to reproduce. For ten thousand years, Wabanaki people have understood and utilized the countless resources these watersheds provide for human life […]
Maine Audubon Excited About Kennebec River Wildlife Recommendations
Many species of fish travel great distances during their lives, and many move between the ocean and freshwater streams and rivers in order to complete their lifecycles. Unfortunately, dams built on those streams and rivers are like locked doors keeping fish from their required habitat. For centuries in Maine, species such as the endangered Atlantic […]