Conservation

Save this date! The 13th Annual Maine Milfoil Summit

Friday, March 2, 2012. Get the latest information and resources!

The Maine Milfoil Summit will be held on Friday, March 2, from 8:30 a.m. to noon, at the Lewiston-Auburn campus of the University of Southern Maine, 51 Westminster St., Lewiston. The summit is free and open to the public, but registration is recommended because space is limited. It is organized by the Lakes Environmental Association (LEA).

The main topic of this year’s summit will be sustainability of Maine’s prevention and control efforts for invasive aquatic plants. One of the featured speakers will be Commissioner Patricia Aho of the Department of Environmental Protection, who will speak at 9:30 a.m.

To register, please email roberta@leamaine.org and give your name and lake/organization affiliation. Please register early, since the meeting room can only hold about 200 people. Directions to Lewiston–Auburn College are available at http://usm.maine.edu/lac/location-and-hours. Courtesy Boat Inspector Training, which is MANDATORY for all organizations seeking DEP grants for boat inspection programs, will be held from 12:30 – 2 p.m. At least one representative from each organization must attend. Please provide your own bag lunch for the training. CBI shirts will be available at the training, so email lakes@leamaine.org and specify the sizes and quantity of shirts needed. Each organization is allowed three shirts and multi–lake programs can have up to 10 shirts. Organizations can buy more shirts for $5 each with a check to LEA.

2012 Grants: Application forms for DEP plant control and CBI grants will be available by email at the time of the Summit. Please email Peter Lowell, LEA executive director, at lakes@leamaine.org if you want to be on the list to receive an application or if you need more information. All recipients of 2011 grants are already on the supplication list and need not email.

Bass Anglers Boosting CBI Stats

If you looked closely at the statistics for Maine’s courtesy boat inspections in 2010, you probably noticed the sharp increases in overall inspections, waterbodies with inspections and participating organizations. Those increases were partly due to inspections conducted at Maine’s bass tournaments. Read full article on page 10-11

Join the Angler Conservation Team

Are your fisheries' resources worth protecting? Do you want to improve fishing in your area? If your answers are yes, then you'll want to join the B.A.S.S. Angler Conservation Team (ACT) supported by Ramada Worldwide. ACT is a network of leisure anglers like you who volunteer to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitats. ACT members are invited to help fellow anglers, communities and natural resource managers with grassroots projects such as building and placing fish habitats in lakes, planting native aquatic vegetation, ensuring angler access to waterways and more. Read more

B.A.S.S. Action - Get Involved With Conservation

Below you will find links and helpful information that can be used to learn more about conservation issues effecting bass and bass anglers. From the latest research on largemouth bass virus to how you can more efficiently handle your catch in order to assure that it remains alive once you release it.

•Largemouth bass virus (LMBV) fact sheet - Your definitive guide to learning more about largemouth bass virus, including annual workshop reports, state reports, research papers and frequently asked questions many anglers have concerning the dreaded virus.

•New Prescriptions for Tournament Care - Since B.A.S.S. released the booklet Keeping Bass Alive, a Guidebook for Anglers and Tournament Organizers, there have been many new innovations and techniques in fish care that anglers and tournament directors should know about.

•Keeping Bass Alive - A guidebook for anglers and tournament organizers to use. The objective of these articles is very simple — maximize the survival of bass that are caught and released during tournaments.