Searching for Smelt:

Citizen Scientists & Maine's Sea Run Fishes
Claire Enterline & Danielle Frechette

February 10, 2021 at 7:00 pm
Required Registration

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Claire Enterline is the Research Coordinator at the Maine Coastal Program in the Department of Marine Resources. She provides technical leadership regarding sampling methodology, data analysis, and development of scientific papers, and also works with coastal managers at the local, state, regional, and federal level to translate scientific analysis into best management practices
and management plans. Claire is an active member of the Northeast Regional Ocean Council and the Maine Climate Council’s Coastal and Marine Working Group. Current projects include a state-wide salt marsh and sea-level rise monitoring program, the Maine Coastal Mapping Initiative, a project to map and describe marine benthic habitat, and CoastWise, an approach to restoring tidal flow at restrictions using voluntary, standardized (yet adaptive), efficient, and climate-resilient best practices.

From 2007-2015, Claire’s research focused on the abundance, population dynamics, habitat, and behavior of rainbow smelt. As part of this work, she was the lead author on the Regional Conservation Plan for Rainbow Smelt, and carried out the first smelt population assessments in Maine since the 1970s. Her research on spawning behavior and timing has led to changes in thinking and practices for how tidal culverts should be designed in order to minimize impacts to the species.

Danielle Frechette is a Marine Resource Scientist for the Department of Marine Resources Division of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat. She serves as the DMR liaison for a new citizen science effort that will track presence and absence of sea run fish in Maine’s coastal streams and rivers to inform restoration and management actions. Danielle is also lead biologist for the Salmon for Maine’s Rivers program, an exciting new endeavor designed to help jumpstart recovery for federally endangered Atlantic salmon in Maine. She is a salmon biologist by training and worked on endangered Coho salmon and threatened steelhead in California and Atlantic salmon in Quebec before landing at DMR in 2019. Danielle is especially interested in how Maine’s Atlantic salmon and other sea run fishes use river habitats during spawning migrations and how well they will adapt to climate change.

Spring is not just mud season in Maine; it’s also when rainbow smelt swim up our coastal streams to lay their eggs! These silvery little fish are important ecologically, economically, and culturally but they have been in decline since the mid to late twentieth century. Scientists and resource managers need more complete and up-to-date coast-wide information on these fish to sustainably manage them now and into the future. To help fill information gaps and reconnect citizens to these incredible natural resources, The Nature Conservancy, Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI), Downeast Salmon Federation (DSF), and the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) are collaborating on a project to train interested volunteers across the state to pull on their muck boots and help us cover ground to figure out where rainbow smelt are spawning each year. Following up on surveys performed at streams state-wide in the 1950s, 70s, and 2000s, this current data collection effort is part of GMRI’s new Ecosystem Investigation Network, an online platform that connects and supports a community of partner organizations and citizen scientists of all ages who are investigating how climate change is impacting the species, communities, and habitats in the Gulf of Maine watershed. Join Claire Enterline from the Maine Coastal Program and Danielle Frechette from Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat to learn more about these fascinating fish and how to join this exciting citizen science network!