News from Maine’s Island and Coastal Communities
THE WORKING
volume 35, № 6
published by the island institute
STARRY NIGHT ON SWAN’S—
n
aug 2021 n free circulation: 50,000 n
workingwaterfront.com
Giant jellyfish finding a home in Maine waters
Reports of lion’s mane species in Casco Bay By Stephen Rappaport
S
ummer is here and it’s not only more human visitors crowding into the state. There are also reports that large numbers of lion’s mane jellyfish have been spotted in Maine waters, but no one knows for sure if they are more abundant than usual. “There seem to be more around this year than in previous years,” said Mike Doan, a research associate at Friends of Casco Bay in Portland. The organization’s volunteer “water reporters” are seeing the creatures both east and west of Casco Bay, he said. There also are reports that lion’s mane jellyfish have been spotted as far east as Patten Bay in Hancock County. But whether what Doan called anecdotal reports that lion’s mane jellyfish are abundant this year means their population is on the rise is less sure. “It’s hard to tell if it’s just one year or there are just more,” Doan said. Nick Record, a senior research scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, agreed with that assessment.
“It’s an open question whether jellyfish are on the rise generally,” Record said in late June. According to the Bigelow researcher, there has been no funding for the systematic tracking of jellyfish abundance in coastal Maine waters though, several years ago, the laboratory set up the still-active email address jellyfish@ bigelow.org to collect data on jellyfish from the public. “We got a few hundred, maybe more than a thousand, sightings at the email, but it was not a systematic survey like we’d like to get funded,” Record said. The cold waters of the Gulf of Maine are a part of the lion’s mane jellyfish’s normal habitat and, along the coast of Maine, “even with warming, we’re still comfortably within the lion’s mane jellyfish’s comfort range,” he said, though their annual abundance may vary widely. Water temperature is just one factor affecting the lion’s mane’s population. Jellyfish are better able than most other marine species to tolerate water with the low oxygen levels often found in continued on page 7
Portland’s ‘ReCode’ reflects climate realities Photographer Tom Hindman, a former resident of Swan’s Island and photo journalist who worked in Maine and West Virginia, captured this image of Burnt Coat Harbor Light with the Milky Way visible a couple of summers ago.
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Land use codes updated after 50 years By Stephanie Bouchard
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n October 1957, national newspaper headlines announced that Jimmy Hoffa had been elected president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Soviet Union had successfully launched its satellite, Sputnik 1, into Earth’s orbit. Local headlines noted the less remarkable news that the city of Portland had updated its land use code. It would be more than 50 years before that code got a refresh. That refresh, dubbed ReCode, got underway in the spring of 2020, said Christine Grimando, the city’s director of planning and urban development,
during a webinar in June. The webinar, about how Portland is incorporating sustainability goals into the updated land code, was part of the Maine Conservation Voters’ Lunch and Learn series. ReCode, Grimando told her virtual audience, is a two-phase initiative that seeks to refine and update the city’s land use code to dovetail with the goals and vision outlined in the city’s most recent comprehensive plan, adopted in 2017, and in One Climate Future, a joint climate action plan between Portland and South Portland approved by both cities in the fall of 2020. The first phase of ReCode, completed in November 2020 when the city continued on page 7