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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: The longest distance a human shout has been heard from is just over 10 miles, and that scream happened over a lake. Researchers have estimated that a whale scream, or more so a song, can be heard from over 10,000 miles away! Though we can't always hear these songs because of their low frequencies, whales can listen and respond to each other from oceans away.
Description: The Buck Island Sea Turtle Research Program (BISTRP) is a long-term sea turtle monitoring project that focuses on nesting sea turtles in the Caribbean. BISTRP was initiated by the National Park Service in 1988 after Buck Island was identified as an important nesting beach for sea turtles, in particular for the critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtle. Since 1988, the program has conducted annual monitoring of the nesting sea turtles on Buck Island with the goal of identifying each nesting female, collecting biological data, and tracking nest success on the island. [show more]
Description: Since long ago, each spring the River Herring swam up the Concord, Sudbury and Assabet Rivers (SUASCO) in unfathomable numbers to spawn. Their numbers turned the sluggish river turbulent with movement, and their masses colored the water black. Nipmuc, Pawtucket, and Massachuset people, their ancestors before them, and later English colonists, treasured these runs for food and fertilizer, and many seasonal communities were once situated at ideal fishing places. The industrial revolution came with largely little heed to the fish or those that used them. [show more]
Description: The Common Loon (Gavia immer) has historically been used as an indicator species during it's summer breeding season. More specifically, loons have been used as an indicator for heavy metals, biocontamination, and acidity (Canadian Lakes Loon Survey).
Description: Songbirds use islands for breeding and migrating. Great Duck Island is located 10 miles from Mount Desert Island, Maine; it is about 200 acres large and consists of a variety of habitat types.
Description: The Harenna forest is the largest cloud forest in Ethiopia, located in the southern region of the Bale mountain range. 60⁰ 20' and 60⁰ 50'N
Description: Great Duck Island (GDI) is a 91-hectare island lying 13 kilometers south of Mount Desert Island in the Gulf of Maine. GDI has a long history of human occupation, and has been farmed, grazed, and lived upon since the early 19th century. Today, approximately 85 hectares of the island are co-owned by TNC and the state of Maine and has been managed as a preserve since 1985. There is a small private inholding on the north end of the island, and the remaining five hectares are owned by the College of the Atlantic (COA). COA manages the Alice Eno Field Station out of the light station on the south end of the island, where students have conducted regular research on the ecology of the island since 1999 (Anderson 2018) [show more]
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: Developing our arboretum creates more records for future students to refer to, to analyze our campus inventory over time. Our current arboretum contains around 150 different species of woody specimens
Description: The streets are commonplace to all of us. They are a playground to some and a time limit to others. Many of us would love to see the street as a safe place for communities to gather and for people to play and recreate. As long as it does not limit us to work in time. Growing up in the Netherlands I have never seen these two as a conflict, and with the help of some maps, I will show you how road infrastructure in the Netherlands can accommodate both these groups. [show more]
Description: A collaborative public health project project, the All About Arsenic project was initiated in 2015 by researchers at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) and Dartmouth College’s Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program.