Description: Great Duck Island (GDI) is a 91-hectare island lying 13 kilometers south of Mount Desert Island in the Gulf of Maine. GDI has a long history of human occupation, and has been farmed, grazed, and lived upon since the early 19th century. Today, approximately 85 hectares of the island are co-owned by TNC and the state of Maine and has been managed as a preserve since 1985. There is a small private inholding on the north end of the island, and the remaining five hectares are owned by the College of the Atlantic (COA). COA manages the Alice Eno Field Station out of the light station on the south end of the island, where students have conducted regular research on the ecology of the island since 1999 (Anderson 2018) [show more]
Description: Since long ago, each spring the River Herring swam up the Concord, Sudbury and Assabet Rivers (SUASCO) in unfathomable numbers to spawn. Their numbers turned the sluggish river turbulent with movement, and their masses colored the water black. Nipmuc, Pawtucket, and Massachuset people, their ancestors before them, and later English colonists, treasured these runs for food and fertilizer, and many seasonal communities were once situated at ideal fishing places. The industrial revolution came with largely little heed to the fish or those that used them. [show more]
Description: The Harenna forest is the largest cloud forest in Ethiopia, located in the southern region of the Bale mountain range. 60⁰ 20' and 60⁰ 50'N
Description: The Buck Island Sea Turtle Research Program (BISTRP) is a long-term sea turtle monitoring project that focuses on nesting sea turtles in the Caribbean. BISTRP was initiated by the National Park Service in 1988 after Buck Island was identified as an important nesting beach for sea turtles, in particular for the critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtle. Since 1988, the program has conducted annual monitoring of the nesting sea turtles on Buck Island with the goal of identifying each nesting female, collecting biological data, and tracking nest success on the island. [show more]
Description: The Common Loon (Gavia immer) has historically been used as an indicator species during it's summer breeding season. More specifically, loons have been used as an indicator for heavy metals, biocontamination, and acidity (Canadian Lakes Loon Survey).
Description: Songbirds use islands for breeding and migrating. Great Duck Island is located 10 miles from Mount Desert Island, Maine; it is about 200 acres large and consists of a variety of habitat types.
Description: The longest distance a human shout has been heard from is just over 10 miles, and that scream happened over a lake. Researchers have estimated that a whale scream, or more so a song, can be heard from over 10,000 miles away! Though we can't always hear these songs because of their low frequencies, whales can listen and respond to each other from oceans away.
Description: Developing our arboretum creates more records for future students to refer to, to analyze our campus inventory over time. Our current arboretum contains around 150 different species of woody specimens
Description: Acoustic Receivers are monitoring devices that listen for specific sound wavelengths. When these soundwaves are detected a data point is stored and categorized under a unique ID.
Description: Herring gulls are found around the world, not only by the sea, despite often being called "seagulls". There is debate over the herring gull's taxonomic status. American ornithologists lump herring gulls in North America and Europe, while European ornithologists split them. They are often described as scavengers, though there is evidence that individual herring gulls specialize on particular food sources (intertidal, aquaculture, ocean, anthropogenic, freshwater). [show more]
Description: Maine has over 6,000 lakes and ponds. These waterbodies are home to a wide range of wildlife and plant species. Maintaining high water quality in Maine’s lakes and ponds is essential to protect the health of these habitats and the species that use them.
Description: The goal of this project was to identify birding hotspots on Mount Desert Island. To do this, I used data from eBird to determine which birds are most common in each sector. The sectors are areas used by birders during the annual Christmas Bird Count . Birding hotspots are areas that birders go to frequently
Description: Roads often intersect the habitat between forests and wetlands, leaving migrating amphibians with no choice but to cross the road. Unfortunately, many amphibians are killed by vehicles when they migrate across roads. These animals' small size and slow movements make them difficult to see from a car.
Description: Plein Air Painters of Acadia is a group of plein air painters on Mount Desert Island, painting local scenes. They meet at locations around the area and work side by side. The group began in 2018. The Shore Path scene in the photograph was painted by Linda Rowell Kelley, artist and plein air painter.