I have spent some very pleasant days during the past month as the guest of a number of island field research stations and am again overwhelmed by the number of dedicated eyes and inquiring minds monitoring the birds, beasts, fish and crustaceans which inhabit the waters and islands of the coast of Maine and the intricate ecology on which we all depend. These creatures—and their human stewards—make our lives richer in every sense of the word.
The granddaddy of these island field stations is the National Audubon Society’s Hog Island facility at the northwest corner of Muscongus Bay, which has been in operation for over 75 years.
Forty years ago, Hog Island attracted the attention of an enterprising young ornithologist, Steve Kress, who conjured up the improbable idea of repopulating extinct island seabird nesting colonies in the Gulf of Maine. Kress began by bringing Atlantic puffins back to Eastern Egg Rock and essentially invented the techniques of seabird restoration that has now spread to other islands around Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Now Kress’ effort has expanded to seven island field research stations off the Maine coast from Stratton Island in Saco Bay to Seal Island in outer Penobscot Bay. More than 50 field assistants monitor the health and productivity of four species of terns, razorbill auks, black guillemots, great cormorants, Manx shearwaters and, of course, the iconic puffin.
At either end of the Gulf of Maine are two other venerable island research stations. In 1966, Cornell professor John Kingsbury brought the first students to Appledore Island six miles off Portsmouth, N.H. and launched Isles of Shoals Marine Laboratory. The University of New Hampshire now partners with Cornell to offer summer courses ranging from “Underwater Research” and “Whales, Seals and Sharks,” to a non-credit course in marine immersion—very thrilling when studying sharks in the Gulf of Maine.
At the far northeast end of the Gulf of Maine lies another highly venerable field station, the Bowdoin Science Station on Kent Island off Grand Manan. Established in 1935, the researchers at the field station have spent more than seven decades studying the colony of a secretive, nocturnal seabird, the Leach’s storm petrel.
There are approximately 15,000 breeding pairs of this robin-sized bird, which is a cousin of the giant albatrosses that have the largest wingspan of any bird on earth. The field station hosts a small community of researchers from Bowdoin and other institutions that live and work on the most remote of the island field stations in the Gulf of Maine, further isolated daily by the enormous 20 foot tides that dramatically shape and reshape the island’s geography completely every six hours and each minute in between.
Working our way back westward from this easternmost outpost, the College of the Atlantic anchors its network of island field research stations on Great Duck Island, six miles south of Mount Desert Rock. COA’s Island Research Center, headed up by John Anderson, focuses on the island’s seabirds, while applying geographic information systems (GIS) technology to wildlife population monitoring.
In addition to the Great Duck Island station, a sister organization, Allied Whale, founded in 1973 by COA professor and later president Steve Katona, maintains a field station on distant Mount Desert Rock, the most distant speck of rock off the Maine coast. Allied Whale has compiled the world’s largest photographic inventory of individually identified humpback and finback whales in the world, adding immeasurably to the knowledge of the vast migrations of these two endangered species.
The University of Maine’s Darling Marine Lab may be located on the mainland at on the edge of the Damariscotta River in Walpole, but its two most well known lobster biologists, Bob Steneck and Rick Wahle, have long studied the ecology of lobster behavior from a network of underwater island monitoring stations.
Rick Wahle has monitored baby lobster settlement in the underwater shoals around Damariscove Island for almost two decades. His Damariscove Island data, when combined with other data on where and how many little lobsters are settling into nursery areas, has begun to enable biologists to predict the relative abundance of lobsters that will be harvested five, six and seven years into the future.
Although not as economically charismatic as the lobster, the University of Maine at Machias maintains a vitally important island research facility focused on clam production at a hatchery on Beal’s Island under the leadership of Brian Beal.
In addition, the University of New England maintains one of the newest island research stations on Wood Island in Saco Bay. Their research focuses on raising seaweeds for a variety of purposes, including the enormously valuable business of wrapping sushi rolls in thin sheets of a species of seaweed that grows naturally in the intertidal and subtidal environments in the Gulf of Maine.
One of the most innovative field stations, the Herring Gut Learning Center in Port Clyde, is considering expanding its program to Allen Island. Herring Gut trains middle and high school students in the techniques of raising tilapia, fed by algae they raise and then using the fish waste to grow lettuce that students sell locally during the summer.
But wait—there’s more!
The Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership is currently getting its sea legs underneath itself on the 150-acre island once inhabited by two very different communities. The Hurricane Island Granite Company occupied the island between 1870 and 1914, was abandoned for a half century and then became the home for the illustrious Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. When the Outward Bound program decamped for a less expensive mainland base, mink quickly reclaimed many of the abandoned buildings.
After three years of renovations, Barney Hallowell, its new executive director, is finally able to begin focusing on bringing students, teachers and residents back to the island. One of their visions is to develop Maine’s 16th year round island community based on how to live in a carbon-free world while producing food, energy and shelter from the abundant resources that surrounds this legendary island.
The one thing, however, that is missing mid this stunning collection of 15 island research stations off the Maine coast (and two more potentially on the way) which annually attract and train hundreds of talented people to study the islands is a synthesis of these invaluable observations into a summary of the health of the ecosystem on which we all ultimately depend.
Philip Conkling is the founder of the Island Institute. He now operates Conkling & Associates, a consulting firm.