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January 3, 2006
Project Coordinator: Jed Wright (jed_wright@fws.gov; 207-781-8364 x12)
Spring River Lands Adjacent to Narraguagus River Permanently Protected
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contributed $600,000 of the $2.2 million required to purchase 9,939 acres of lands and waters adjacent to 13.4 miles of the Spring River and the West Branch of the Narraguagus River. The Nature Conservancy - Maine Chapter (TNC) played the lead role in negotiating, coordinating, funding and finalizing this important land protection project. Purchased from H.C. Haynes, a commercial timber harvester, the Spring River property will now be owned and managed in perpetuity by The Nature Conservancy (Maine Chapter). Combined with 14,000 acres of previously protected land surrounding Donnell Pond, the Spring River acquisition will create an impressive 24,000-acre stretch of contiguous conservation lands that will be managed as an ecological reserve.
Gulf of Maine Coastal Program provided technical and financial support that helped move this project towards successful completion. Jed Wright, Field Coordinator for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation-funded Maine Atlantic Salmon Conservation Fund (MASCF), worked with partners and MASCF board members to contribute $100,000 for the Spring River project. The FWS Endangered Species Recovery Land Acquisition Grant (RLAG) provided an additional $500,000 for the project. Jed provided quantitative biological data, based on biological surveys conducted by Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fisheries biologists, that helped document Atlantic salmon habitat values and justify funding from both grants. According to the analysis, the Spring River parcel contains 25,000 square meters of juvenile Atlantic salmon rearing habitat and 1,287 square meters of spawning habitat – constituting 5% of the drainage’s total rearing habitat and 4% of the drainage’s total spawning habitat. Gulf of Maine Coastal Program’s Gulf of Maine watershed-wide GIS habitat analysis also documented that the Spring River property provides important habitat for other diadromous fish, including eel, American shad and alewives, and for 41 species of rare or declining migratory birds that depend on forested, riparian and freshwater wetland habitats.
The permanent protection of Spring Brook in the Narraguagus River watershed,
is one more example of successful land protection efforts that can contribute
to the recovery of endangered Atlantic salmon populations in Maine. Since
1996, the Gulf of Maine Coastal Program has worked with Atlantic salmon
conservation partners in Maine to help permanently protect nearly 60,000
acres and 385 river-miles along the banks of Maine’s eight listed
Atlantic salmon rivers. These efforts have protected most of the riparian
habitat along the Dennys, Machias and Ducktrap Rivers, as well as sizeable
portions of riparian habitat along the Pleasant and Sheepscot Rivers. This
important work protects habitat for Atlantic salmon, as well as all of
Maine’s other diadromous fish, migratory birds and other wildlife
and plants that depend on healthy riparian corridors. “Protecting
riparian habitat along the listed Atlantic salmon rivers today provides
needed habitat for many trust species in perpetuity, including Atlantic
salmon when they recover from their current precarious status,” commented
Project Leader Stewart Fefer.