Gulf of Maine

Each summer researchers nest alongside the sea birds on an isolated island 45 minutes by boat off midcoast Maine, on Eastern Egg Rock, to try to learn more about our environment and changing climate.

In 2021, a number of Maine’s beloved puffins did not grow to normal size and starved because of a lack of certain food. Last summer, the Gulf of Maine, which surrounds many of the remote rocks and islands off of Maine’s coast where puffins nest, broke yet another average temperature record and experienced a marine heat wave. The typical...

In Maine, researchers are seeing puffins begin to arrive at islands after what they call an “unsettling” year in 2021. According to Dr. Donald Lyons, director of conservation science for the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute, only a quarter of puffin parents studied by Project Puffin last summer were able to raise chicks that could leave the islands they hatched…

Rising sea temperatures are to blame.

Local researchers are studying why North Atlantic right whales are migrating out of our area into more northern waters in Canada. Some believe rapidly warming waters in the Gulf of Maine could be playing a role, but they’re just not sure how. The North Atlantic right whale is one of the most critically endangered animals on the planet. Researchers...

A stark record was set last year in the Gulf of Maine, which is already one of the fastest warming ocean bodies in the world. According to new data released this week by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, 2021 was its warmest year observed to date, with an average temperature of 54.14 degrees Fahrenheit. “My first reaction was well…

Already one of the fastest warming ocean bodies in the world, 2021 was the Gulf of Maine’s warmest year observed to date.

The Gulf of Maine, one of the world’s fastest-warming ocean waters, set a new record for surface temperatures last year, researchers said Monday. The surface temperature in 2021 topped the previous record in 2012 and was more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term average, according to scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland. The 2021 average…

Members of the Maine lobster fishing industry are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block new fishing restrictions designed to protect a rare species of whale. The rules, designed to protect North Atlantic right whales, have been the subject of court action in recent weeks. New rules make an approximately 950-square-mile area of the Gulf of Maine essentially off...

Lobster fishermen off the Maine coast must begin to remove gear from a new protected area intended to help whales, the federal government said. New rules make an approximately 950-square-mile area of the Gulf of Maine essentially off limits to lobster fishing from October to January. A federal appeals court ruled this week that the ban is enforceable, despite legal…

A Portland wharf that has been family-owned for generations has found a buyer.

A piece of history in Portland, Maine will soon change hands, but unlike a number of recent real estate transactions in the Pine Tree State, is not being sold to highest bidder. For roughly 200 years, the Poole family and its ancestors have owned Union Wharf off of Portland’s Commercial Street. But according to Charlie Poole, one of its co-owners,…

Maine’s beloved puffins suffered one of their worst years for reproduction in decades this summer due to a lack of the small fish they eat. Puffins are seabirds with colorful beaks that nest on four small islands off the coast of Maine. There are about 1,500 breeding pairs in the state and they are dependent on fish such as herring…

Maine officials have launched a new tool to help people who believe they spotted a white shark find out if it was indeed the big fish. The Maine Department of Marine Resources has added the online tool to its website. It’s a form that allows shark spotters to upload photos and videos and submit a description of what they...

Federal regulators have signed off on new protections for thousands of square miles of deep-sea corals off New England. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday it has approved a final rule that designates the coral protection areas on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine. The largest of the underwater areas is called the Georges Bank Deep-Sea…

A new study from a Maine marine research laboratory has found that microplastics in the sea can impact the growth of lobsters. Researchers at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay say the growth of lobsters is negatively impacted when they ingest microplastics, defined by scientists as plastic particles five millimeters or smaller. According to Dr. Patricia Matrai, a…

A new study from a Maine laboratory has found that microplastics in the sea can impact the growth of lobsters.

A large jellyfish was found on the shore on Peaks Island, Maine, over the weekend that measured in at a whopping five feet — something that researchers say would have been all but impossible in the state until just a few years ago. The family that found it was astounded at how big the creature was. “We put all three…

The storm that brought us rain and thunder, and some Thanksgiving snow for the ski areas, Wednesday night and early this morning is now strengthening and slowing down east of New England. Recall last year— it was one of the snowiest and coldest Thanksgiving days on record. Although it won’t be as bad this year, it is chilly outside for...

Few things are as embedded in Maine’s culture — or its mud — as clams, and an environmental group thinks the key to saving the shellfish might be growing a different kind of bivalve along the state’s coast. Manomet, based in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is proposing the shellfish shift as a way to beat predators that plague Maine’s clam diggers.