Citizen Science and Wildlife Conservation: Lessons from 34 Years of the Maine Loon Count
MAINE POLICY REVIEW •
Citizen Science and Wildlife Conser vation: Lessons from 34 Years of the Maine Loon Count
Sally Stockwell
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Citizen Science and Wildlife Conservation:
Since the early 1980s—long before the term citizen science was widely adopted—
Maine Audubon has engaged thousands of dedicated volunteers in myriad wildlife
surveys and studies, from bat colony monitoring to spring amphibian surveys to loon
counts. In this article, the authors describe some of those citizen science projects and
use the longest-running program, the Maine Loon Project and its annual Loon Count,
to showcase what it takes to run a successful program. They also review key lessons
learned from these projects over the last three decades.
MAINE AUDUBON AND CITIZEN SCIENCE
Mners over more than three decades to develop and
aine Audubon has worked with a variety of
partlead numerous citizen science projects. Each addresses
an important conservation need, and all collect
information that helps conservation biologists, state and
local governments, and citizens to take action to help
conserve the target species and habitats. Importantly,
they also engage volunteers in science, the outdoors, and
activities that foster appreciation of wildlife and wildlife
habitat throughout the state.
Major Current and Recent Past Projects
Bat maternal colony and audio surveys
Maine Audubon worked with the Maine
Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW)
to develop a survey protocol for citizen scientists to
estimate productivity of Maine’s bats. Unfortunately,
due to the sudden onset of white nose syndrome in
Maine, over 100 volunteers who were set to locate and
survey colonies found mostly abandoned sites. Of the
more than 40 colonies initially identified, only one
showed production of bat pups. More recently, in
2015 and 2016, Maine Audubon worked with Erik
Blomberg at the University of Maine on the BatME
Project to recruit and train volunteers to survey bats
throughout Maine using an
innovative iPad audio-recording program
(EchoMeter Touch, Wildlife
Acoustics). The long-term goal of
BatME, which is ongoing but
currently lacks funding, is to
document changes in occurrence and
relative abundance of eight bat
species across the state as a way of
documenting the impacts of white
nose syndrome and other sources of
mortality on our native bat
populations
(Blomberg, Morano, and Mosby 2016)
.
Surveys of brook trout ponds and coastal streams
Maine is the last stronghold for wild brook trout in
the eastern United States. Pond and lake populations are
intact in 185 subwatersheds (compared to only six total
intact subwatersheds among the 16 other eastern states),
and stream populations are intact in as many Maine
subwatersheds as in all other eastern states combined
(TU
2006)
. Even so, some waters have not yet been surveyed,
so volunteer anglers were recruited to find previously
undocumented wild brook trout populations in remote
ponds and coastal streams. After six years, volunteers
have successfully surveyed more than 425 remote Maine
ponds for which no data were previously available. In the
three years since the Coastal Stream Survey was included,
volunteers have successfully evaluated 137 coastal streams.
Working with our primary partners of MDIFW and
Trout Unlimited, these volunteers have donated over
7,990 hours to the project and found trout or signs of
trout in 145 ponds and 65 streams
(MA, MDIFW, and
TU 2016)
. The long-term goal of this project is to protect
priority ponds by adding them to the State Heritage Fish
Waters list, which does not allow stocking or the use of
live fish as bait, and to develop new strategies for
protecting sea-run brook trout in Maine’s coastal streams,
ultimately ensuring the future success of the last, best
remaining wild brook trout in the East.
Wildlife road watch
Roads and traffic can make it difficult or impossible
for wildlife to move safely across the landscape. Wildlife
populations may decline or become locally extinct as a
result of vehicle collisions or the inability to move across
different vital habitats during their life cycles. Wildlife
movement has become even more important for
population survival as habitats shift due to climate change
and animals adapt by moving to find more suitable
habitat. Additionally, vehicle collisions are an ongoing
safety concern for Maine drivers. For this project,
volunteers watch for and record wildlife (live or dead) on
roads throughout the state to document wildlife
movement and road mortality. Between July 2010 and
December 2014, over 460 volunteers submitted more
than 4,800 observations via a web-based reporting
program. This includes 6,000 individual animals (60
percent dead on the road) and 153 different species
(Charry 2015)
. This project is in collaboration with the
UC Davis Road Ecology Center and is a model for other
states and countries around the world. Next year, we
will be initiating a new program tracking turtle
movement in an eff (...truncated)