This week Maine Audubon held its first ever Wildlife Champion Awards event at Gilsland Farm. We gathered in the Ann and Jim Hancock Native Plants Education Center to honor six state legislators who helped pass important legislation related to wildlife and habitat during the 132nd Maine Legislature, which convened in 2025 and 2026.
Wildlife advocacy has been central to Maine Audubon’s mission since the founding of the Maine Audubon Society in 1902. In the 132nd Legislature, our staff testified on 84 individual bills in the First Session and 22 in the Second Session for a total of 106 individual bills—a Maine Audubon record! In the 132nd, more than 4,238 messages were sent to legislators by Maine Audubon members and supporters and we delivered several petitions with thousands of signatures in support of bills we cared about.
But Maine Audubon advocacy staff and public supporters need help from lawmakers to get legislation passed. It’s a big job: legislators need to be ready to not only take on the responsibility of being a lead sponsor of a pro-wildlife bill, but also to work alongside this wildlife community to get these proposals across the finish line.
Maine Audubon honored six lawmakers who were lead sponsors of legislation that helped advance the conservation of wildlife and habitat in the 132nd Maine Legislature with our first ever Wildlife Champion Award: Rep. Vicki Doudera, Senator Tim Nangle, Rep. Laurie Osher, Sen. Rick Bennett, Sen. Joe Rafferty, and Rep. Sally Cluchey.
Representative Vicki Doudera (District 41 – Camden / Rockport)
Rep. Doudera was the lead sponsor of LD 1323, which ultimately required Maine’s Board of Pesticides Control to evaluate the impacts of neonicotinoids—harmful pesticides, which are also called “neonics” for short—on pollinators, humans and the environment. Though effective at managing pests, neonics pose threats to Maine wildlife, pollinators, and farmers due to their indiscriminate nature and pervasiveness in the environment. The world of pest management policy is almost always a controversial topic and Rep. Doudera helped us navigate a path forward that marked a necessary next step in our work to protect the health of Maine pollinators. Backed by the advocacy efforts of public health, organic farming, and wildlife voices, Rep. Doudera helped us secure unanimous support for the bill during committee-level deliberations and the bill ultimately passed both chambers and became law. Now, Maine Audubon staff are actively engaging in the Board of Pesticides’s process to evaluate impacts that neonics have on Maine pollinators and people to assess how we move forward in curbing our use of this pesticide in the state.
Senator Tim Nangle (District 26 – Cumberland County)
For more than four decades, Maine Audubon has worked to assess the status and safeguard the future of Maine loon population, so policies that improve the health of Maine inland waters are of particular interest to our organization. Maine’s shoreland zoning laws and rules exist to help protect water quality, limit erosion, conserve wildlife, and preserve the natural beauty of Maine’s shoreland areas for wildlife and people. In recent years, we’ve witnessed a series of egregious shoreland zoning violations from homeowners and developers who easily absorb fines for cutting healthy trees along the water’s edge or by adding jetties, stairs, boat launches, sand, and other features without the necessary permits as the “cost of doing business.” Senator Nangle, thankfully, was not willing to let this slide in his district or anywhere in our state. We are thrilled to honor Senator Nangle tonight for sponsoring LD 1904, an initiative that builds on his work from previous sessions to helps towns defend the “shoreland zone” by establishing the Municipal Shoreline Protection Legal Fund, which acts as a revolving loan fund to assist municipalities—especially small ones—in paying legal costs incurred in pursuing violations to help communities make sure that violators cannot easily get away with breaking shoreland zoning laws just because they can afford to.
Representative Laurie Osher (District 25 – Orono)
Rep. Laurie Osher of Orono sponsored LD 1934, Maine’s first ever law to regulate outdoor light pollution! Taking on “a first-of-its-kind” sort of bill is a big dealt—and Rep. Osher helped us and our partners navigate all sorts of stakeholder input on the state’s first Dark Sky law. With several safety, transportation, and sports-related exemptions included, the new law requires that new or replacement lighting installed using public funds or on public property meets standards that prevent light pollution. Maine is privileged with dark skies, a precious natural resource increasingly rare in our modern world. Natural dark skies contribute to the proper functioning of ecosystems and therefore to continued biodiversity. Rep. Osher was a steadfast advocate for regulating light pollution in the state, and it took several years and LDs to get us to this victory.
Senator Rick Bennett (District 18 – Oxford County)
Senator Rick Bennett of Oxford County led two important bills: LD 1529, which helped Maine old-growth forests and undeveloped, remote ponds; and LD 356, to address harmful impacts from rodenticides. Both initiatives experienced all sorts of twists and turns, but Senator Bennett did not shy away from the hard conversations required to strike the right balance with all sorts of stakeholders to get these proposals passed. LD 1529 advances state planning efforts to conserve mature forests and undeveloped, remote ponds, tasking state agencies with developing a comprehensive report on strategies to enhance the conservation of our state’s oldest forests on public and private land statewide and require the Land Use Planning Commission—the zoning and planning authority for the Unorganized Territories—to consider the effectiveness of its lake management program and whether protections for certain lakes in this 10.4M acre area need to be revisited.
LD 356 directed Maine’s Board of Pesticides Control to establish restrictions on rodenticides in our state. Unfortunately, we know that the use of rodenticides to control mice and rat populations has impacts far beyond their intended targets. Too often, owls, hawks, foxes, raccoons, eagles, ravens, pet cats and dogs, and many more creatures may accidentally ingest these poisons, which were not intended for them. Because of this initiative, the Board recently proposed and subsequently passed consumer restrictions on the sale and use of the most concentrated and lethal type of this pesticide.
Senator Joe Rafferty (District 34 – York County)
Senator Rafferty was the lead sponsor of LD 1543, which established the Maine Green Schools Network within the Department of Education to connect Maine schools, educators, students, state agencies, Tribal governments, and nonprofit organizations in order to help expand outdoor, environmental, and climate education opportunities and help schools become more sustainable. Education is at the heart of Maine Audubon’s mission. Senator Rafferty believes in the importance of robust environmental education for Maine youth and took on this proposal as lead sponsor while actively engaging with youth leaders and organizations throughout the legislative process. Improving the quality and availability of environmental education is crucial for a sustainable future. The Green Schools Network will help foster a sense of environmental responsibility, community connection, and educational innovation in Maine schools—none of which would be happening right now without this initiative.
Representative Sally Cluchey (District 52 – Bowdoinham)
Rep. Sally Cluchey of Bowdoinham was the lead sponsor of LD 1882, legislation that expanded—and in many ways reclaimed—protections for vernal pools in our state and LD 1241, which established a new, creative mechanism to help increase funding for our state’s endangered and nongame conservation work. Even though vernal pools may only fill with water for a short time in spring and fall, and often dry out by mid-late summer, their ecological significance is massive—however, advancing proposals to change vernal pool protections is almost always a challenging and contentious affair, and this effort was no exception—no matter, Rep. Cluchey was up for it. This initiative established a 100 ft. “no disturbance” zone around these important habitats, closed an existing loophole that allowed development to encircle vernal pools in some instances, among other changes. Rep. Cluchey helped us get the majority of the Legislature on board with better protecting these wetlands in our state—no small feat.
Additionally, she sponsored legislation to create the “Make Change for Wildlife” program in order to help generate voluntary contributions to benefit the state’s Endangered and Nongame Wildlife Fund. Businesses who want to participate in this program collect customer contributions at the point-of-sale by offering customers the option to round up their purchases to the nearest dollar or some alternative amount, which all goes into the fund. Per recent reports from our state’s wildlife agency, we know that state officials do not have what they need in order to help keep vulnerable native species like the Roseate Tern, Little Brown Bat, and Katahdin Arctic Butterfly from going extinct. Our organization will be supporting the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in launching a pilot version of this program soon.
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We’re incredibly thankful for all of our awardees and their efforts this past legislative session. And we’re already looking ahead to working with them and others in the 133rd Maine Legislature, convening in January 2027, and putting forth new bills to protect Maine wildlife and habitat.
