The Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund has awarded a grant to Maine Audubon’s important project to remove barriers that prevent fish from moving up and down streams and getting to their spawning grounds.
Maine Audubon, partnering with The Nature Conservancy, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and support from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and funding from MOHF, private foundations and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, recently completed their Stream Barrier Survey Project.
The primary goal of this project was to improve the ability of Atlantic salmon, brook trout, and other aquatic fish and wildlife to move up and down streams and between streams and ponds by surveying road-stream crossings, identifying barriers, and highlighting priorities for culvert and bridge replacements.
They substantially improved coverage of surveys across the state – to about 80% – by completing approximately 2,500 new stream barrier surveys in midcoast, western, and northern Maine.
This project is part of a broader Stream Smart program that includes providing diverse outreach tools and technical training for road professionals on the importance of “letting the stream act like a stream”; developing and training a corps of leaders to work within communities to identify and replace poorly functioning culverts and bridges; and linking road professionals with the technical support and funding they need to undertake Stream Smart crossing projects.
Please visit http://maineaudubon.org/streamsmart/ for more information about the program and resources available.