By Wildlife Biologist Shevenell Webb [caption id="attachment_3393" align="alignright" width="226"] A young tracker consults her notebook to confirm opossum tracks.[/caption] Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but love is still in the air!

By Joe Overlock, Fisheries Management Supervisor Most people don’t realize that when they buy fishing gear, they are directly helping the fish they love to catch. It is all thanks to a law passed in 1950 called the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act (named after the congressmen who spearheaded the effort).

By Amanda DeMusz, Regional Wildlife Biologist Note: This post is an update to a story shared last April.

Jeremy Clark – Resource Manager, Lands Program MDIFW’s Lands Program foresters have started laying out areas for a harvest operation at the Frye Mountain Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Knox.  A Forest & Wildlife Management Operations Report, or harvest prescription, was developed in 2018 for a 643-acre compartment in the southeastern section of the 5,238-acre WMA.  Compartment J has been cruised and wildlife habitat management goals and objectives have been identified based on current forest types, soils, and habitat features noted during the inventory, and in consulta

By Sarah Spencer, Wildlife Biologist On a recent site visit to a property on the mid-coast, I was rewarded with a great view of a small mammal I don’t often encounter. I discussesd with two foresters at the site the value of a “wolf” white pine and the importance of these types of trees to a number of wildlife species who use them for foraging, breeding, raising young, and for cover. The lot we were on had a history of farming and practicing forestry. This white pine had likely grown in what was once pasture and was left when the plantation was planted years later.

By Chuck Hulsey, Regional Wildlife Biologist, Region D, Strong I grew up deer hunting with family and friends.  There were no great deer hunters in my group.  As the oldest of eight, my dad was a teen during the Great Depression and lived in rural Arkansas and Oklahoma. He hunted more for food than sport. There certainly wasn’t any such thing as going to deer camp in those days. Fox squirrels and jack rabbits were the game. World events resulted in an invitation to participate in the Second World War.

By Scott McLellan, Regional Wildlife Biologist  Wildlife biologists with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) spend countless hours each deer hunting season interviewing hunters and collecting a multitude of information from white-tailed deer.  This information includes, but is not limited to, collecting a tooth for aging, sex, harvest date and township, antler measurements and number of points, and retropharyngeal lymph nodes for testing of Chronic Wasting Disease.  Our goal is to evaluate 15% of the harvested deer from each wildlife management distr

By Allen Starr, Assistant Regional Wildlife Biologist Establishing a wild turkey population in Maine has been a biological success story. A few captures and relocations from other states followed-up by in state captures and relocations has resulted in a thriving turkey population in many parts of Maine, but, depending on whom you’re talking to, Maine has either too many turkeys, too few turkeys or about the right amount.  To properly manage turkeys in Maine requires solid information on numbers of birds in various parts of the state.

By Merry Gallagher, Native Fish Conservation Biologist Historically, many Maine streams were used to transport logs from the woods to the mills.  To increase the efficiency of moving the logs, boulders, in-stream logs and other habitat features were removed, stream channels were often bulldozed and straightened to facilitate log transport, and side channels and flood plain access would be blocked or bermed.  These operations degraded trout habitat by decreasing the overall quantity and quality of pools, removing in-stream structures and cover elements beneficial to fish, and