Bowdoin College
OP-10: Biodiversity

Bowdoin College owns and manages a designated bird sanctuary known as the Bowdoin College Scientific Station on Kent Island (approx. 247 acres), located just south of the island of Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada. The station also includes two smaller islands besides Kent — neighboring Hay Island (75 acres [30 ha]) can be reached by foot at low tide; Sheep Island (45 acres [18 ha]) can be reached by small boat. Kent Island is the southernmost vegetated island in the Grand Manan Archipelago. The habitats on these conserved islands include intertidal zones, fields, and forests. Because of the cool, moist climate of the Bay of Fundy, the flora and fauna of Kent Island are characterized by boreal species that would normally be found farther north. Virtually predator-free, the island is a sanctuary for birds, specifically Leach’s storm-petrels, which have been studied here since the early 1930s and whose species is currently threatened.

Since the 1930s, ornithologists have been studying the long-lived Leach's storm petrels that breed on Kent Island in underground burrows, making the island home to one of the longest continuing species studies in the world. Other multiyear studies have been conducted on Savannah sparrows and herring gulls. BSS Kent Island's core mission is threefold. 1) to conduct and support world-class scientific research in Kent Island's unique environment, 2) to provide undergraduates the chance to work on independent research alongside professional scientists, and 3) to conserve and protect the flora and fauna of the three islands.

The storm-petrel population on Kent Island has been monitored continuously since the 1950s with some data going back to the 1930s, creating a unique data set that allows researchers to study the impacts of climate change on this long-lived species. The Atlantic Leach’s storm-petrel population in Canada represents about a third of global numbers, with the species’ largest colony at Baccalieu Island, Newfoundland. This species was designated globally threatened in 2016 by BirdLife International and uplisted to vulnerable on the IUCN Red List based on significant population declines, particularly in the western Atlantic.(https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/cosewic-assessments-status-reports/leachs-storm-petrel-2020.html)

In addition to studies at the Kent Island scientific station, the College hired consultants to perform a protected natural resource report for Bowdoin's Schiller Coastal Studies Center as well as on college owned land at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, which Bowdoin acquired in 2011. As part of the study at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center, it was determined that according to the USFWS database there were no federally listed threatened or endangered species and or habitats on the site. The Maine Natural Areas Program stated that there were no rare botanical features documented specifically within the site. The Maine Department of Inland Fish and Wildlife mapped the mudflats and eelgrass beds surrounding much of the site as Tidal Waterfowl and Wading Bird Habitat.

Bowdoin owns approximately 130 acres of land that borders town-designated conservation land. The town conservation land protects two unique natural communities; the natural sandplain grassland and the pitch-pine heath barren. The sandplain grassland, which is ranked as S1‐ critically imperiled due to the scarcity of documented examples across the state, is also considered habitat for two birds listed as endangered and protected under the Maine Endangered Species Act, the upland sandpiper and the grasshopper sparrow. The College hired a consultant to perform an assessment of the College's adjacent 130 acres during plans to construct a solar project on site. While neither the upland sandpiper or the grasshopper sparrow have ever been seen on the Bowdoin site, two rare plants were documented as part of the site assessment by the Maine Natural Areas Program, the dry‐land sedge and the clothed sedge.

The original monitoring in preparation of the solar project was completed by the environmental consulting firm hired by the college, TRC. They also received input from the Maine Natural Areas Program and the Maine Department of Inland Fish and Wildlife. The Maine Natural Areas Program (MNAP) is within the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry. With landowner permission, MNAP inventories lands that support rare and endangered plants, rare natural communities and ecosystems, and outstanding examples of more common natural communities and ecosystems. MNAP also provides objective and comprehensive information to equip decision-makers with the necessary tools to make informed and responsible decisions. The College has also used the naval base site for academics. Biology and environmental studies lab sections have used the site for research since the college purchased the land a decade ago. Examples include amphibian research and studying clonal tree genomes in aspen trees on site.  Since the solar project was developed in 2021–2022 an ecology class has taken samples on site for a survey of plant diversity/succession. 

In each of the two years since the initial assessment by the consulting firm, a Bowdoin ecology class has completed plant surveys in forty - 1 meter squared plots both inside the solar fence and outside the site in the pitch pine area as a control. GPS coordinates were taken and shared with the administration and the environmental consulting firm who worked on the initial assessment. They found several invasive species inside the project fence, and none outside in the control area. These included: Japanese knotweed, Asiatic bittersweet, cyprus spurge, and multiflora rose. We also found some introduced species including: cow vetch, rosinweed, common soapwort, yellow toadflax, Common St. Johnswort, field sorrel, red clover, and curly dock.

The solar project was designed to avoid the plant population areas of both sedges, and a management plan has been developed to encourage the long term sandplain grassland habitat. As part of the project, one acre of pavement was removed from the site and seeded with sandplain grassland compatible seeds. The solar panels were designed higher than usual to allow more space for the native grasses, and a management plan was developed to encourage the long term sandplain grassland habitat. Measures include: * Mowing no more than twice per year, but ideally just once per year, and limited to a period after August 31. * Since prescribed fire will no longer be a possible management tool, once‐annual or biennial mowing in the fall to prevent woody vegetation from colonizing the area and threatening these species. * If herbicide application is used to manage invasive species on site, the use of a wand to apply herbicide at a height that will kill taller woody plants but avoid contact with most lower growing herbaceous species is required.