[More] Good things in Frenchboro
Here’s an update to my recent posting on Frenchboro:
MCHT is always looking for ways to connect kids with nature and advance the scientific understanding of Maine’s wildlife. On November 3rd, these two goals came together, out on Frenchboro Long Island.
We asked Steve Pelletier to make a presentation to the Frenchboro school about the bat call recording device he’s had on MCHT’s Frenchboro Preserve for the last 2 months. The device records the calls of local and/or migrating bats and is one of 12 on islands along the coast. Such recordings help us understand species interaction, habitat selection and how the range of these creatures may be changing over time.
The class walked a mile of trail and even bushwacked the final half mile to the site of the recording device, on Southwest Point. They retrieved the device and took it back to the classroom, where Steve gave a short talk about bats and what he’s hoping to learn by recording them. That’s Steve and some of the kids, out on the preserve, below.
In the age of Wii and “virtual field trips,” isn’t it nice to see kids connecting with nature on an actual preserve?
Now, back to the original post about some of our other recent work in Frenchboro:
The dozen islands which make up the Town of Frenchboro lie in Blue Hill Bay, just south of Mount Desert Island. Maine Coast Heritage Trust has an important preserve in Frenchboro, on Long Island, that’s nearly 1,000 acres in size. We’re working with Frenchboro to transfer some of that land to help create more housing and a health center, among other things. Working Waterfront, a great publication from The Island Institute, gives a nice description of this partnership effort in its most recent edition.
On September 15th, Maine Coast Heritage Trust’s Terry Towne spent the day with 14 students and 2 teachers from the Frenchboro School, and one of Frenchboro’s selectmen, cleaning shoreline areas as part of the 2009 Coastweek Cleanup. As Terry wrote, after the cleanup:
“the Frenchboro school is the only island school in Maine that is seeing growth in the number of students. It was just 6 years ago there were only 2 students in the school and now they expect it to grow by 2 or 3 next year, with none going off to the high school until 2011. Everyone had a great time, worked hard and was even sorry it had to end. It is great to see our future out there.”
Terry then went back a few days later to remove all the trash, including some that the community had picked up on a second clean-up day — 59 bags in total.
MCHT is glad to be working with the folks in Frenchboro on these two great projects.
Paul Gallay
President, Maine Coast Heritage Trust
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