The Wrack

Say it with us! Join the 2017 #iheartestuaries campaign on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and IRL on February 12, 13, and 14. Raise your voice on behalf of estuaries. Call out to Congress with a simple message: "I care about estuaries and this is why…"

Using drones in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System.

This course, launched in 2013, provides guidance in collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing qualitative data and using the results to improve the quality of meetings, foster effective project management, and facilitate collaborative research projects.

A few weeks back we hosted a New England regional meeting for reserves located in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. In attendance were approximately 40 staff members from the four reserves spanning research, education, stewardship, coastal training, managers, and friends.

As an employee of the Wells Reserve for almost a year now, I had the privilege of attending this meeting and learning more about how the reserve system works as a whole, how neighboring reserves strive to work together, and how staff members collaborate on ideas.

The first week of March is customarily when reserve managers visit Congressional offices in DC to explain why the estuarine reserves are such a healthy bargain.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 9/21/2014.

With a too-short summer and the back-to-school fracas, anyone would be pardoned for missing the official Congressional resolution naming this coming week “National Estuaries Week,” the annual celebration of the places where rivers meet the sea.

Before you get too excited, please understand that the resolution is merely pending, and that estuaries don’t get the whole month. According to Congress, the entire 30 days of September have, in recent years, been reserved for Gospel Music Heritage, Bourbon Heritage, Prostate Cancer Awareness, Childhood Obesity, Honey, and even Self-Awareness. (And you thought our legislators didn’t do anything – shame on you.)

Resolved or not, 1/52nd of a year certainly seems like a worthy amount of time to devote to estuaries, those humble places of mud and marsh that do so much.

As a warm-up to the 2014 #iheartestuaries campaign, I asked all of our staff to fill in the blank in this sentence: "I love estuaries because __________." Here are the responses…

Raise your voice on behalf of estuaries. Join our #iheartestuaries campaign to reach Congress with a simple message: "I love estuaries and this is why…"

Let your legislators know you want the NERR System funded.

Dr. Christine B. Feurt, coordinator of the Coastal Training Program at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), was presented with the 2012 NERR System and NERR Association Award at the annual NERRS/NERRA meeting held in West Virginia in November. The award is given annually to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the reserve system.

WELLS, Maine, November 4, 2011 — Paul Dest, director of the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), was presented with the 2011 NERR System and NERR Association Award at the annual NERRS/NERRA meeting at Ponte Verde Beach, Florida, on October 27. The award is given annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the reserve system.

“It is truly an honor to be recognized, and especially meaningful when it is by one’s peers,” said Dest.