The Wrack

Recording in three distinct habitats at different times of the day and the year is creating a soundscape for long-term studies.

New faces arrive each June to assist with education and research programs for the summer. This year we welcome Cassie, Grace, Larissa, and Jessica, and welcome back Amanda.

With the practiced eye of a marine scientist, a post-career volunteer finds an uncommon copepod in a Wells Harbor plankton sample.

Environmental DNA could dramatically change the way reserve scientists survey streams, rivers, and estuaries for finfish and crustaceans.

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.

Dr. Jason Goldstein will oversee the Wells Reserves fish studies, salt marsh restoration activities, and long-term environmental monitoring program. He will expand the reserves shellfish program, currently focused on green crab research, into lobster and Jonah crab ecology.

This spring, our research staff will be heading out to nearby rivers to begin a fish-monitoring project and you can get involved.

We're collaborating with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) to generate up-to-date population information on species with the greatest conservation need in coastal Maine. DMR staff have identified potential spawning habitat for diadromous species such as alewife, rainbow smelt, and brook trout in the Merriland River, Mousam River, and Little River (Biddeford). Now were off too see if these species are indeed using these habitats.