The Wrack

eDNA methods and traditional plankton-net surveys are complementary ways to investigate estuarine fish assemblages. Which methods to use depend on what question we ask.

Wells Reserve is expanding fisheries science and conflict management research thanks to two grants from the NERRS Science Collaborative.

We got lots of help over 10 weeks of fyke netting in the York River and added 3,759 fish records to our database. The results will be included in a report to the York River Wild and Scenic Committee.

Introduction to the larval fish monitoring done by reserve scientists at Wells Harbor.

Fyke netting in the York River in April and May 2017 resulted in well over 1,000 rainbow smelt caught and released, plus evidence of successful spawning in the river.

For the past five weeks, our research staff have been out fishing in the rivers of southern Maine to provide up-to-date information on species with the greatest need for conservation. We have been fortunate to have the help of some dedicated community volunteers and members of the Sebago Chapter of Trout Unlimited.  This is the earliest we’ve been fishing in recent years and the catch has been diverse and exciting!

Friends and staff of four National Estuarine Research Reserves — Wells, Great Bay, Waquoit, and Narragansett —are expected to line the banks of the Little River over the weekend for Bleachers on the Estuary.

Earlier this month, about 30 people assembled behind an isolated and nondescript brick building along U.S. Route 1 at the boundary of Wells and Kennebunk during one of the wettest mornings of our rather soggy spring.

Everyone was good natured about the rain. After all, we were standing alongside an important water supply that had recently been improved for fish. We huddled under popup tents in foul-weather gear to celebrate the reconstruction of the Branch Brook fish ladder, a piscine highway past the water district's dam.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 11/3/13:

Jake Aman, a researcher at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm known fondly as our “river guy,” is building a ladder this month. At a cost of $40,000, provided by funders including the Nature Conservancy, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the Maine Coastal Program, the local water district and the Reserve, it’s not some ordinary stepladder. It’s fancy.

None of us will be climbing Jake’s ladder anytime soon, though. It’s a ladder for fish. With it, they’ll be able to climb up and over a small but insurmountable dam on the Branch Brook, a tributary of the Little River here on the Kennebunk/Wells border. With this ladder, the Wells Reserve will reestablish an essential connection between the ocean downstream and vital nursery pools upstream. A small piece, missing for twenty years from a mosaic that stretches from New Hampshire to Newfoundland, will be replaced.

Every spring the rivers of Maine are home to a unique phenomenon. As the water temperatures rise above 12.8°C (55° F) alewives begin their annual migration upstream to the lakes and ponds where they were born. This evolutionary strategy is known to biologists as anadromy and is shared with nine other native species including Atlantic salmon and rainbow smelt.

Historically, the schools of spawning fish in our rivers numbered in the millions, and were a significant economic and nutritional resource. Even today, some coastal Maine towns have an annual alewife harvest where these fish are caught by the thousands to be sold for lobster bait, or even smoked and sold to adventurous gourmands or locals with a taste for traditional fare. One notable alewife run takes place in mid-coast Maine at Damariscotta Mills. The fish ladder that bypasses the dam at the outlet of Damariscotta Lake is a great place to see these seasonal visitors.