The Wrack

The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge 50th anniversary prompts a remembrance.

Learning 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.

A delegation of directors and managers of protected areas in Chile and Colombia visited the Wells Reserve and Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge on May 25 to gather insights into programs and activities at refuges and research reserves. The nine Chileans and Colombians were from national parks, forests, and sanctuaries.

Staff from the Wells Reserve, Rachel Carson Refuge, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Gulf of Maine Coastal Program led the delegation on a tour of the reserve and the refuge. Delegates learned about research in areas such as climate change impacts on estuarine and coastal ecosystems, salt marsh response to sea level rise, endangered shorebird management and protection, early successional habitat management activities benefiting a range of wildlife species, river restoration, and tracking fish movement between fresh and salt water. They viewed fish being caught and tagged at the newly restored fish ladder on Branch Brook and viewed a 2,000-year-old salt marsh peat sample in the Reserve’s research laboratory.

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.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 11/24/13:

Many of the staff of the Wells Reserve at Laudholm were in West Virginia this past week for the annual conference of the 28 national estuarine research reserves. Researchers, educators, conservationists, land managers and even evangelists like me pulled ourselves away from our coastal homes to share ideas, hammer out new projects for 2014, and do some good old-fashioned colleague schmoozing.

I flew out of Portland on a sparkling, "unlimited visibility" Monday afternoon. My Southwest flight passed three miles above the Wells Reserve, giving me the rare opportunity to get a live bird's eye view of our little corner of the Maine coast. Looking down, I smiled quietly over how beautiful and tranquil the place looked.

It seems like every year, every budget cycle, there's another call to action. Each year, the situation is supposedly more dire than ever. "This is the year when the buck may finally stop here," they say. "We could lose everything this time," they say.

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.

In the summer of 2009, Marissa Hammond came to us as a wide-eyed freshman with little experience in research science. She has blossomed into a NOAA scholarship award winner who has been accepted into a highly respected graduate program in fisheries management and policy.

The White House has released a draft implementation plan for National Ocean Policy, demonstrating ongoing progress on a massive task. The draft implementation plan is guided by four themes:

1. Adopt ecosystem-based management
2. Obtain, use, and share the best science and data
3. Promote efficiency and collaboration
4. Strengthen regional efforts

The plan lays out a series of more than 50 actions — with accompanying outcomes and milestones — guided by these National Priority Objectives: