leaning in for emphasis. "The wildlife research community along the coast is involved on many different levels." You won't see billboards advertising researchers' efforts to save the world one clam at a time. But behind the seemingly calm coast of the northern Atlantic, there lies an army of organizations and groups finding solutions just like the one Tofu was a part of where animals, industry, and environmentalists are able to find common ground.
F
OR YEARS, THE PENOBSCOT
River and its tributaries supported a Midcoast Maine wildlife kingdom of sorts. Great blue herons soared overhead, kingfisher sniped prey along the banks, and mysterious dark masses glittered beneath the surface as several thousand
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river herring swam in synchronicity. Yet, dams built starting in the late nineteenth century to develop power for the region disrupted the river's flow and threatened the fragile balance., The Maine Nature Conservancy is nearing completion of more than a decade's worth of intricate research and funding for the removal of two of the dams and the construction of a state-of the-art fish bypass around another while ensuring energy generation is maintained on one of the region's most significant river systems. As a result, nearly 1,000 miles of habitat along the Penobscot and its tributaries will be restored by 2013. A fleet of fish species ranging from Atlantic salmon to blueback herring to endangered shortnose sturgeon will surge upstream once again.
Portsmouth I Penobscot Bay I Bar Harbor I Lake George
"It's much more than just taking down a few dams," says the River Penobscot Restoration Trust's Cheryl Daigle. "All the people committed to this project a[e helping to revitalize a significant part of the culture around the Penobscot for the benefit of the local ecosystem and the people who thrive from it." The communities will be rewarded by healthy fisheries, enhanced angling and paddling, and a renewed connection to the river. Yet, Daigle's comment also speaks to something at the heart of almost every successful wildlife-research project: buy-in from industry. The dam deconstruction works only because it Research, l ike that done in the coastal stretches outside the Seaco ast Science Center, is painStaking work.
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