by George Smith Bangor Daily News column “New Hampshire’s moose population has declined by 3,100, which is more than 40 percent, since 1997. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department has reduced the number of moose hunting permits by 60 percent in the last five years.” As New Hampshire goes, so goes Maine? That could Read More
Protecting Wildlife
Report: Climate Change Impacting Game Species in Maine
Heat, Disease Threaten Big Game and Their Habitats NRCM and NWF press release Augusta, ME (September 25, 2013) – Rising temperatures, spreading diseases, and more extreme weather events fueled by manmade climate change are making survival more challenging for America’s treasured big game wildlife from coast to coast, according to a new report from the Read More
What’s Happening to All the Moose?
by The Washington Post Bangor Daily News news story Moose in the northern United States are dying in what scientists say may be the start of climate shock to the world’s boreal forests. The die-off is most dire in Minnesota, where ecologists say moose could be gone within a decade. But it extends across the Read More
Climate Change Threatens Much that is Life in the Maine Outdoors
by George Smith Kennebec Journal column Maine’s environment is our economy. We can have pickerel and payrolls. These tired — but true — slogans have defined much of our political rhetoric for decades. Perhaps it’s time to change the discussion. This was my thought as I sat in on a “conversation about the environment” hosted Read More
Creature Feature: The Maine Lobster
To many of us who live in Maine year-round, the hundreds of thousands of multicolored buoys…
Creature Feature: Spiders
Come October, the edges of forest, field, and lawn are strewn with spider webs—and not all of them are fake. Especially when the season has been wet and fat insects abound, spiders proliferate. Spiders have become a symbol of Halloween, dread and fear embodied by fangs and eight creeping legs dangling by a nearly invisible thread.
Climate Change Threatens Fisheries, Including Maine’s Brook Trout
by George Smith Kennebec Journal column WE’VE HEARD AND read a lot about the alarming increase in green crabs in coastal waters, and the devastating impact the crabs have had on mussels and clams. Lobsters may be next. The city of Brunswick even appropriated $100,000 to work with local clammers to try to save their Read More
Creature Feature: New England Cottontail Rabbit
The New England cottontail rabbit, also known as the brush rabbit, woods rabbit, or coney, occupies only 14% of its native range from southeastern New York to southern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. To the north is the domain of the snowshoe hare; to the south lives the Eastern cottontail, which was introduced to New England in the early twentieth century and is now more common.
Ban on Lead Fishing Gear Just One Way to Save Loons
Portland Press Herald editorial Policies also need to address the impact of habitat loss, watercraft activity and lower water quality. Loons stricken with lead poisoning die slowly and painfully. It’s no surprise that those who have seen it firsthand recognize the tragedy in what is a wholly preventable death. The culprits are lead sinkers and Read More
