Alaska has had a high drowning rate for many years. As a response to Alaska’s tragic situation, the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA) was formed in the mid 1980s. Now AMSEA is offering two workshops for educators in Maine, at the Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport on April 19-20, and in South Portland in the evenings of April 23-26. The workshop and curriculum will be provided at no cost. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) or academic credit are available to participants at their own expense. Register through the AMSEA web page;
In Maine’s first criminal case against a salmon farm, Heritage Salmon Inc. has agreed to pay nearly $15,000 for failing to report the presence of a deadly salmon virus in its Cobscook Bay fish pens. Heritage, a division of Toronto-based George Weston Ltd., was accused of violating fish health regulations last fall when fish farmers in the bay were under state orders to test their fish regularly for infectious salmon anemia, or ISA. Heritage failed to report test results, which included three positives, to the state in October and November. ISA decimated New Brunswick salmon farms in 1998 and was detected in Maine early last year. The disease is not harmful to humans, but is deadly to Atlantic salmon. (Associated Press)
“Islands,” North Haven’s home-grown Broadway musical, will be performed at the Camden High School Auditorium on Friday, April 26, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 27, at 1 p.m. Tickets are available through Archipelago, the Island Institute’s retail store in Rockland.
“For me, [fish] are as individual as dogs,” says Dr. Callum Roberts, a lecturer in marine environmental management at the University of York in England. “They are incredibly varied. And quite intelligent. People underestimate fish.” In environmental circles, he is known as the Rachel Carson of the fish world – an untiring advocate of marine life conservation. “With deep-water fishing, I saw an emerging problem, which had a solution. If you could step in early enough, then perhaps you can stop this global rush to exploit the deep sea – which, I feel, will lead to the destruction of fragile deep-sea habitats and fish stocks.” Roberts is a critic of deep water trawling, which he describes as “more like strip mining than harvesting. In the past, there was luck to deep-water fishing. If you can’t really see the sea bed, it’s like fishing with a blindfold on,” he says. (New York Times)
Richard Bamberger has joined the staff of the Marine Environmental Research Institute (MERI) as its new Education Program Director. He will oversee all aspects of education programming at MERI’S Center for Marine Studies, which includes leading the naturalist programs, eco-cruises, wildlife excursions, and Children’s Island Explorer Trips. In addition to overseeing all programs in the Ocean Room, Bamberger also will assume responsibility for MERI’s summer internships and training naturalist staff. The 38-year old environmental educator says he’s looking forward to working with MERI because, “It seems like the right fit.” Formerly Natural Science Curator at the North Carolina Aquarium, and Program Director of Carolina Ocean Studies, Bamberger has extensive experience with school and public programming.
“Emily Muir: The Time of My Life” is the title of a new show scheduled to open April 21 at Rockland’s Farnsworth Art Museum. An artist who worked in a variety of media with her husband, the late William Muir, and who also designed a number of striking houses on Deer Isle in the 1960s, Muir recently wrote her autobiography, “The Time of My Life.” The book was published by the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Island Institute, and its sales will benefit the Institute’s William and Emily Muir Fund. The Farnsworth exhibit will be in place through August 18.
“After a disappointing period of weak stewardship, the National Marine Fisheries Service is starting to take control of local efforts to restore fish stocks in New England … The restrictions weigh heavily on fishermen, but they are necessary to reverse the decades-long decline in ground fish stocks. The technical ability of the New England trawler to catch fish vastly outstrips the ability of species to reproduce. Only strong limits on days at sea and major modifications in equipment to reduce bycatch – the inadvertent killing of non-targeted species – will ensure future fisheries … The commercial fishing industry is immensely efficient, but the bureaucracy that oversees the industry has been awash in duplication. Government regulators need to streamline their operations to protect both marine species and the livelihoods of New England fishermen. The work of private scientists, however, suggests that tough restrictions will be needed not only for cod but for various stocks, including Atlantic halibut, white hake, and Southern New England yellowtail flounder… [The] North Atlantic hosts only one-sixth the number of fish it did 100 years ago, but fishing continues eight times more intensively … It took a lawsuit by the Conservation Law Foundation and other groups to focus federal regulators to this extent. Buoyed by their court victory, the plaintiffs are certain to press for wider protections when a federal judge reviews the fisheries proposal in April … (Editorial, Boston Globe)
Ellsworth and Melba Hamilton Miller of Chebeague, 91 and 89 respectively, died recently, a few weeks apart. Lifetime residents of the island, the Millers were profiled in the 1999 “Island Journal” by their daughter, Donna Miller Damon. “Their birthplaces faced the open ocean and the rising sun,” wrote their daughter at that time. “Surrounded by extended families with deep island roots, the Millers’ childhoods differed greatly from those of their four grandchildren who are growing up on Chebeague today. Their lives have revolved around their meeting basic needs in harmony with the rhythms of the sea.” The Millers were married in 1949.
Watts Hill, 75, died March 15, 2002, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A longtime supporter and friend of the Island Institute, Hill was chairman of the Institute’s Island Partners, and a summer resident of Deer Isle. He was instrumental in arranging for the recent publication of “The Time of My Life,” an autobiography of Deer Isle artist and designer Emily Muir.