|
Resource Acadia is offering a workshop in which participants will learn about and participate in research into rockweed population genetics along the intertidal areas around Schoodic Point.
Some coastal brook trout spend all their lives in fresh water. Others head out to sea for a few months or a year and then return to fresh water to spawn. The ones that move back and forth are called “salters” or “sea run brook trout.” The technical term for this movement out to sea and then back to fresh water for spawning is “anadromy.” Nobody knows why some brook trout are anadromous and others are fresh water residents all their life. Biologists do believe, however, that the number of anadromous fish is declining. They are not sure why, but roads and culverts blocking the movement of the fish are one possible factor, among others.
As is the case with so much other ecosystem research in and around Acadia National Park, the first step toward understanding the bigger questions is an assessment of the current situation. How many fish are moving back and forth? Where does the migration happen? Where does it NOT happen?
I live in a one species town (it’s a one horse town too, but that’s a different story). The species is lobster and it is estimated to account for about half of all income earned in Winter Harbor and the surrounding community … but it wasn’t always this way
There is new evidence that the currents in the North Atlantic are changing and slowing down, according to research published in Nature last week. The effects of this change on Europe could be dramatic. It also has me wondering about how these changes might affect the Labrador current off the Coast of Maine.
In late October SERC was privileged to host a meeting of researchers associated with the Downeast Initiative. You can read the article describing that meeting by clicking here. I attended the meeting and came away impressed. What the Downeast Initiative is attempting to do is critically important.
This importance extends beyond fishing. Fisheries are among this region’s most significant natural resources, viewed from an economic standpoint. I cannot conceive of a way in which we could have an effective Downeast natural resource conservation ethic if we do not have a fisheries conservation ethic.
John Muir wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” That is the thinking behind ecosystem-based fisheries management — an approach to fisheries management that we treat as something new — as something that we need to figure out how to do.
Seventy years ago the Dust Bowl brought about the first major effort to create ecosystem-based management. It was an effort that involved government programs, education, management and monitoring, and various economic incentives.
What did we learn from that? What worked? What are the outcomes seventy years down the road? What came as a surprise? And what can we apply from all this learning to our current need to bring an ecosystem approach to managing fisheries?