Description: Exploring the Past to Build a Resilient Future To understand how climate change is affecting Mount Desert Island we need to look to the past. Our ancestors documented the natural world around them in stories, reports, journals, diaries, and letters, which are cared for in the collections of history museums and libraries. Increasingly, scientists are pulling observations and data from historic records to get a clearer picture of the natural world of the past to understand how the present is changing. [show more]
Description: An estimated 73 million sharks were killed last year, primarily for their fins. Their populations are at critical levels, and they are still being fished out of the oceans at unsustainable rates. Some regional populations of shark species are down to 95 - 99%, which is considered functional extinction.
Description: Dengue, a mosquito-borne virus, has spread across the globe in recent years, now infecting an estimated 100-400 million people each year. Approximately forty percent of the world’s population lives in countries with a risk of dengue.
Description: The USDA reported a shortage of veterinarians in at least 500 counties spanning 44 states. This shortage is mostly in rural areas and therefore has a larger effect on large animals and livestock. American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) reported that only 10% of graduates had an interest in working with livestock.
Description: Under the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) 's, cheetahs are listed as vulnerable. This status means the species is likely to become endangered unless the circumstances threatening its survival and reproduction of the species improve. Due to recent studies showing a significant decline in current cheetah numbers, scientists have started calling for the species to be up-listed to endangered status under the IUCN.
Description: Great Duck Island is a 237-acre island 15 km south of Mount Desert Island, Maine. It served as a manned Coast Guard lighthouse post from 1890 until 1986 when it was automated. Sheep grazed the island from the late 19th century until 1951, dramatically impacting the landscape and ecology of the island. In 1985, the Nature Conservancy and the State of Maine gained control of most of the island, collaborating with the College of the Atlantic Eno Research Station to monitor the ecology of the land. [show more]
Description: An exploration of the George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History collections and their origins. The Dorr Museum of Natural History is unique among museums in that its collections have been prepared entirely by students.
Description: Pollinators such as wild bees and the Western honeybee, Apis mellifera, are important to humans and nature. Seventy-five percent of food crops and 90% of wild flowering plants benefit from animal pollinators (IPBES 2016).