By Beth Swartz IFW Wildlife Biologist Bumble bees, with their bold yellow and black stripes, large furry bodies and relatively docile dispositions, are a familiar backyard insect to most people. The important role they play in our environment, however, often goes unrecognized.

[caption id="attachment_576" align="alignright" width="315"] This is one of Sara’s great granddaughters who now is wearing a collar of her own.[/caption] Wildlife biologists have been monitoring black bears in Maine since 1975. Over the course of this monitoring program, a few bears have been monitored for over 20 years.

[caption id="attachment_564" align="alignleft" width="207"] Artist Michael Loring with his first place acrylic painting of canvasback[/caption] Congratulations to Michael Loring of Windham, the winner of the 2015 Maine Migratory Waterfowl Stamp Contest!