News & Announcements
Download media package for this story, including text in Word format for news release and list of funded projects plus two high-resolution images (2,176K self-extracting Zip file) Photo credits: Center Pond fishway: USFWS Baby eels: Doug Watts
March 13 , 2007
Project Coordinators:
sandra_lary@fws.gov; 207-781-8364 x19
jed_wright@fws.gov; 207-781-8364 x12
Gulf of Maine Coastal Program supports 23 projects to benefit fish and wildlife in Maine’s rivers and streams
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Gulf of Maine Coastal Program is pleased to announce that we are providing nearly $750,000 to support diadromous (searun) fish habitat protection, restoration, and assessment projects in Maine this year. .jpg)
$485,000 of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funds have been directed to the Maine Atlantic Salmon Conservation Fund through a direct Congressional appropriation, supported by our Congressional delegation and by our national and regional Fish and Wildlife Service leadership. According to Jed Wright, Senior Fish and Wildlife Service Biologist who focuses on Atlantic salmon conservation initiatives, “Since 2000, the Maine Atlantic Salmon Conservation Fund has received between $1 - $2 million annually. This funding has helped protect over 81,000 acres and opened many miles of historic salmon habitat.” This year’s funds have been reduced, yet will continue to be directed to high priority habitat assessment, outreach, restoration and protection projects to benefit Maine’s Atlantic salmon habitat, with a focus on the eight federally listed rivers.
In addition, Gulf of Maine Coastal Program is providing $161,000 received from the Service’s competitive grants program along with $100,000 from the Fish America Foundation. “These funds, combined with several thousand dollars from our office’s discretionary ‘project fund,’ will be directed to river restoration projects that benefit any of a dozen species of searun fish, as well as other fish and wildlife that depend on intact river corridors in Maine,” .jpg)
said Sandra Lary, Senior Fish and Wildlife Service Biologist who focuses on diadromous fish restoration activities throughout Maine. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funds can be used with great flexibility, for on-the-ground implementation as well as other vital components of searun fish restoration work -- such as planning and design, permitting, community outreach, building capacity of locally-based conservation groups, monitoring, and inventory of barriers that impede fish passage.
USFWS funds will be used to:
- Install new or improved fish passage at more than a dozen sites,
- Restore spawning and rearing habitat in nearly 13,500 acres of lake habitat,
- Restore spawning and rearing habitat in nearly 25 miles of river habitat,
- Initiate a comprehensive fish passage barrier inventory covering more than 1,300 sites,
- Continue a loaner bridge program, designed to eliminate the need to install hundreds of permanent culverts,
- Support the Penobscot River Restoration Partnership, a landscape-scale initiative aimed at re-establishing 500 river-miles of passage for searun fish,
- Permanently protect riparian habitat along the Sheepscot and Narraguagus Rivers, which harbor federally listed Atlantic salmon,
- Support outreach and education in Atlantic salmon watersheds,
- Build capacity for two locally-based conservation groups engaged in Atlantic salmon habitat protection and restoration projects,
- Restore natural instream habitat diversity on Atlantic salmon streams, and
- Monitor fish passage at two priority sites.
“Successful implementation of all of these projects relies on the cooperation, technical support and matching funds from landowners, municipalities, federal and state agencies, universities, and conservation organizations committed to protecting and restoring our rivers for diadromous fish and many other species,” commented Project Leader Stewart Fefer. Key players working with our Gulf of Maine Coastal Program staff include multiple USFWS offices (Engineering Division, Fisheries Resource Office, Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, Maine Field Office), USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Maine Dept. of Marine Resources (including the Diadromous Fish Division and the former Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission), Maine Forest Service, NOAA, Maine Corporate Wetland Restoration Partnership, Fish America Foundation, land trusts and watershed associations. More than thirty other organizations have also participated in these high priority river and stream restoration initiatives.
Restoring rivers, providing fish passage, and increasing populations of native searun fish is important for more than fish. Re-establishing searun fish boosts the biological diversity and productivity of the entire river corridor, as well as our estuaries and oceans – for everything from aquatic insects, mussels, amphibians, waterbirds and furbearing mammals to commercially and recreationally important fish, seabirds, marine mammals, and us.
For a list and brief description of each project funded, click here (40K *.doc file)