Maine’s coastal areas are a vital recreational asset that encompasses a diversity of ecosystems hosting various migratory seabirds and forms of sea life. Covering some 5,300 acres from Kittery north to Cape Elizabeth, the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) preserves land in an area where coastal development has impacted many other formerly pristine ecosystems.
The national refuge takes its name from the pioneering environmentalist who was active with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and raised public awareness related to wildlife conservation. Born in 1907, Rachel Louise Carson began her career as a marine biologist with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and became editor-in-chief of its publications. She transitioned to a full-time career as author in the early 1950s, using the proceeds from her early books to buy a cottage on Maine’s Southport Island.
From 1952 onward, Carson spent her summers there, frequently walking to the Muscongus Bay coast to explored a New Harbor salt pond. The pond is a small remnant of ocean that remains landlocked each day when the tide moves out. This quarter-acre salt pond provided the raw materials for Carson’s work as citizen scientist, gathering specimens such as sea colander, kelp, blue mussels, Irish moss, and green crabs. With the information gleaned from these species, she wrote her 1955 book The Edge of the Sea. This spot, teeming with marine life, is today known as the Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve and managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
This management arrangement is no accident, as Carson was responsible for helping establish the Maine Chapter of the conservancy. Working with several concerned citizens at the coastal Wiscasset Inn, she persuaded them to put their efforts into creating the chapter, the conservancy’s fourth such organization.
The royalties Carson made from her 1962 bestseller Silent Spring, about the potential for global environmental catastrophe caused by the widespread use of chemical pesticides, enabled TNC to acquire and protect the salt pond where she did much of her work. When Carson passed away, the conservancy transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands that were combined with other parcels to make up the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.
Designed to protect the integrity of migratory birds that rely on salt marshes and estuaries as habitat, the refuge spans 50 miles of coastline and 11 divisions. This distance takes in a major transition from New England’s deciduous forests to northern boreal forests, and encompasses a diversity of habitats. It includes wooded uplands, tidal salt marshes, coastal meadows, barrier beaches with dunes, and a jagged, rocky coast.
Birding is a major year-round draw, with shorebird migrations occurring in the spring and summer and raptor migrations taking place in early autumn. A substantial waterfowl population winters in the area and remains until early spring.
The Maine Coastal Cleanup is a vital program that encourages ordinary people to become citizen scientists, much as Rachel Carson was, and to clean up litter-impacted parts of the Maine coast. The state’s largest volunteer event each year, the Coastal Cleanup takes place in September in conjunction with Maine Coastweek. In 2023, more than 500 volunteers assisted in clearing some 2,580 pounds of trash along 56 miles of Maine waterfront.
