Help Protect Wild Productive Penobscot Bay!
Want to protect the lobsters, scallops, clams, fin fish, seabirds, shorebirds natural beauty, and coastal communities of Maine's biggest bay from pollution, port sprawl, wind sprawl, inappropriate aquaculture, invader species and other threats to the Bay's well-being?

Then JOIN Penobscot Bay Watch, today!

WHY?
Penobscot Bay is home to New England's richest lobster grounds (and most prosperous lobstering towns), as well as hosting a brackish water estuarine complex America's biggest of the last wild Atlantic salmon runs. Surrounded by spectacular forest-draped coastal mountains, filled with archipelagoes of wild and working islands, haunted by adventurous sailors and seakayakers above kelp forested ledges. Below the surface a rocky maze of sunken canyons and seamounts makes up the floor of Penobscot Bay.

The Bay's scenic beauty from Sears Island to Monhegan and Isle au Haut inspires generations of skilled artisans and artists living and working in villages and towns sprinkled around the Bay and its islands. Boatbuilders here erect some of the world's finest sea craft. Fine woodworkers, painters, sculptors and writers and others of the creative economy develop their crafts of local, regional, national and international repute.

But all this can change quickly! Powerful forces of development have 'discovered' Penobscot Bay. Much of what makes the Bay unique - from hosting the nation's richest lobster grounds to its thousands of bustling natural small businesses based on the beauty and abundance of the Bay - stands to vanish under a tidal wave of development.

* Commercial shipping is on the increase in Penobscot Bay, withthe recently expanded Mack Point state port in Searsport, and new industrial activity on the shore of the tidal Penobscot River stimulating waterborn transportation. Strict control of ballast water discharges is necessary to avoid an ecological meltdown.

WHAT WE DO:Penobscot Bay Watch's mission is community service to both the natural marine and intertidal communities of Penobscot Bay and the people and local communities that sustainably and respectfully interact with those natural communities. We are an associate member of the Downeast Lobstermen's Association.

Our network of volunteer field activists throughout the bay region work with many groups and individuals around Maine's largest bay, assisting them in protecting nearshore, intertidal and subtidal wildlife and their habitats from pollution, inappropriate aquaculture proposals, habitat destructive coastal development, marina sprawl and misguided marine resource management initiatives.

WHAT YOU CAN DO Below is a list of ways to join the Watch and take part in caring for Maine's biggest bay.
Work from the comfort of your home, in the Bay Watch office, out in the shore, or on and over the Bay!Take a look at the list and get in touch with us if you can take part in caring for Penobscot Bay. Our telephone # is 207-691-7485 email is penbay@justice.com
Postal address: Penobscot Bay Watch, POB 1871, Rockland ME 04841.

1. BAY TOURS Be a Baywatcher aboard your kayak, sail or motor vessel. Or bring one along! Help us assess the vitality of the bay as the seasons pass by taking along one of our activists on your paddling, sailing or motoring voyages on Penobscot Bay. If you are a coastal land owner, let Penobcot Bay Watch members visit your shoreline to observe and learn about the intidal and intertidal ecology and environment of that part of the bay coast.

2. OVERFLIGHTS Private pilots: be BayWatchers, or bring one along on your private aircraft flights in the bay region when opportunity offers. Be a passengers with camera and sharp eye on directed conservation overflights of Penobscot Bay and its tidal watershed, providing concerned Penobscot Bay area citizens with video and still picture documentation of the bay's coastal forest cover, erosion events, aquaculture operation stability, industrial and POTW outfalls, gravel mining operations, seal pupping areas, eagle nests and other natural and unnatural features around and about the bay.

3. SHOREWATCH. Select a piece of the bay or its shoreline environment to regularly visit to look for signs of pollution or other problems, to document that area's natural ecology, and/or to keep watch for the asian shore crab, mitten crab, and several other invasive species of concern in the Penobscot Bay area that ballast water discharges

4. SPEAKING FOR THE BAY Attend meetings to represent, or present on behalf of, Penobscot Bay Watch. There are many more bay conservation and government meetings taking place every week throughout the bay area than any one person can attend.

People who can write short letters to any of dozens of officials attend meetings and events relevant to the conservation and restoration of Penobscot Bay, take notes & collect whatever printed matter is distributed at them, and to speak for the bay as needed. Some of these meetings and events take place during working hours , some in the evenings and on weekends. They include:

* Public hearings and other federal, state, or municipal government meetings bearing on development, aquaculture, fisheries management, dredging, spraying, discharge licenses and other governmental happenings that could affect Penobcot Bay and its sustainable natural and human communities.

* Meetings of local citizen groups formed in response to some particular development project, conservation initiative or other environmental insult. NIMBY, or "Not In My Bay" groups are extremely important temporary groups of concerned residents that can have the official "legal standing" to participate meaningfully in such decisionmaking processes.

* Symposiums, conferences, committee meetings on Penobscot Bay related issues and proposals. These include events on regional sprawl, shellfish and shellfishery oversight, pollution and other matters. Contact organizations that have a presence on the bay for updates on their activities and announcement

DOCUMENTING THE BAY. Use your digital recorder to collect an audio hour of your local foghorns at work. Or of the Bay washing over a cobbled shore, or slapping against a wharf or crashing against cliff and ledge. Of lobster boats leaving or entering their harbors, of gulls at work.

5. BLOG UPDATING. Report your findings, insights, pictures or whatever about the bay in a comment on the Penobscot Bay Blog Or send your info to us at penbay@justice.com . Items include updates on bay-related community events, bay-related town or state government public events, notices or meeting announcements, bay related commercial fishing and sportfishing news and announcements . Sailing news. Timely or relevant pictures a plus!

6. HISTORIC RECORDS/ Data Mining. Bringing as much of the written and photographed public record about Penobscot Bay and the greater Gulf of Maine from preceding centuries into the electronic information age's public record is critical to helping the present generation understand what has gone on before them. Scannable items include paper versions of Penobscot Bay-related historic reports and documents of scientific, natural resource economic and ecologic importance to electronic format accessible via the internet. Historic accounts of bay-related events and incidents, local biographies, fishery and hunting records, and privately published local books, old maps and photographs, etc.

7. MONEY! - Phone bills, mission expenses and office supply needs are never-ending. Chip in to keep the action and information flowing. Office supplies are always welcome.

Take part in caring for Penobscot Bay. Our telephone # is (207) 691-7485; our email is penbay@justice.com or coastwatch@gmail Postal and office address: Penobscot Bay Watch, POB 1871, Rockland ME 04841.