Nature Notes: A Maine Naturalist Afield 4/5/26: A Conversation with Seaweed Biologist Amanda Savoie, Part 1

Host/Producer: Glen Mittelhauser

Glen speaks with Amanda Savoie, a research scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, about her work documenting seaweed biodiversity in northern Norway and the Canadian Arctic. They discuss how extreme light regimes, limited historical surveys, and rapid climate change shape Arctic macroalgal communities, including unusual species such as kelps that grow beneath winter ice using energy stored during the summer’s continuous daylight.

More information about Maine Natural History can be found at mainenaturalhistory.org.

About the hosts:
Glen Mittelhauser founded Maine Natural History Observatory (MNHO) in 2003 to fill the need for an organization that specializes in collecting, interpreting, and maintaining datasets for understanding changes in Maine’s plant and wildlife populations.  Glen received his Bachelor’s in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic in 1989 with a focus in the biological sciences and received his Master of Science degree in Zoology (with a focus on ornithology and statistics) from the University of Maine in 2000. Glen was the Managing Editor for Northeastern Naturalist and Southeastern Naturalist for 18 years and has served as external graduate faculty for 3 graduate student committees at the University of Maine.  Glen currently serves on the Baxter State Park Research Committee.

Logan Parker is an Ecologist residing in Waldo County, Maine. Logan started the Maine Nightjar Monitoring Project in 2017 and brought the project (and his passion for bird conservation) to MNHO when he joined the team in 2018. Logan is heavily involved in the ongoing Maine Bird Atlas where he both coordinates and participates in the project’s special species surveys. When “off the clock”, Logan enjoys birding, writing, gardening, and working alongside his wife, Hallee, on their off-grid home in the Maine woods. Logan is also a wildlife photographer and shares photos and field notes through his project, Here In The Wild.

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What’s the Word on Maine Street? 4/4/26

What’s the Word on Maine Street?, hosted by Sarah Pebworth, is a weekly short feature Saturdays at 9:30am looking at local literary and visual arts events and offerings!

About the host:
Sarah Pebworth leads the steering committee for Word—a Blue Hill Literary Arts Festival, founded in 2017 and held each October. She serves on the boards of the Cultural Alliance of Maine and Lawrence Family Fitness Center YMCA. Since February 2023 Sarah has written “Shared Seas and Common Grounds,” a column published in the Penobscot Bay Press’s Weekly Packet. She and her wife Julie Jo Fehrle live in Blue Hill.

Theme music: Ross Gallagher is a bassist who grew up in East Blue Hill, ME, and currently lives between Bath, ME and Brooklyn, NY, where he works with a wide variety of musical artists. Infinite Blues is a cut from his recently released neon night, an excursion into an ambient/electronic musical world built around rhythmic bass ostinatos, clouds of processed looping electronic atmospheres, and melody. By turns both subtle and unapologetically noisy, the songs are a collection of luminous constellations, roved between by a band of texturally minded instrumental improvisers.

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Earthwise 4/4/26: The Easter Bunny

Producer/Host: Anu Dudley

About the host: Rev. Dr. Anu Dudley is an ordained Pagan minister and a retired history professor. She continues to teach classes, including the three-year ordination curriculum at the Temple of the Feminine Divine, and others such as History of the Goddess, Paganism 101, Ethical Magic, and Introduction to the Runes. Currently she is writing a book about how to cast the runes using their original Goddess meanings. She lives in the woods off-grid in a small homesteading community in Central Maine.

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Around Town 4/3/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Poetry Celebration at the Statehouse this afternoon, organized by the Maine Arts Commission in honor of National Poetry Month

Witherle Library and Castine Arts Association invite you to join them on Saturday afternoons in April for A Little Afternoon Music, from 1:30-2:30 in the Witherle’s Reading room

The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry is looking for seasonal workers including life guards, rangers and customer service representatives to fill jobs at state parks and historic sites this summer

The Department of Marine Resources is looking for a volunteer island caretaker duo for the 2026 season, at Burnt Island Light in Boothbay Harbor. For more information or to apply, send a letter of interest to: [email protected]

The Maine Association of Broadcasters is accepting applications for $2000 scholarships for Maine students enrolled in a college communications-related field.

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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The Maine Monitor Radio Hour 4/2/26

Host: Kate Cough, Editor at The Maine Monitor.

The Maine Monitor Radio Hour is a collaboration between WERU-FM and the Maine Monitor, the nonpartisan, independent publication of the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.

This month: Maine Monitor Editor Kate Cough is joined by Monitor Housing Reporter Caitlin Andrews, Education Reporter Kristian Moravec and Report for America Corps Member Dan O’Connor, who covers rural government for The Monitor in partnership with the Bangor Daily News. We talk about their recent reporting on a fund that would help towns convert empty schools into housing, a new approach to teaching reading and a police department that is using AI to draft reports.

Guests:
Caitlin Andrews, Kristian Moravec, and Dan O’Connor.

FMI:
themainemonitor.org/

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Around Town 4/2/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows responds to Trump’s latest attempt to federalize elections

The Maine Department of Marine Resources Bureau of Sea-Run Fish and Habitat (BSRFH) is announcing the return of Alewife Days, a spring program that connects students with Maine’s annual alewife run through hands-on field trips timed with peak alewife migration in local rivers and streams. FMI and to register Alewife Days coincides with World Fish Migration Day, with events happening globally leading up to May 23. Participating schools are encouraged, but not required, to register their trip as part of this international effort, themed “We Are River People.”

Registration is open for the American Lung Association’s 42nd annual Trek Across Maine in June. Organizers say they expect about 1000 participants this year, for the 3-day, 180-mile mile trek that will start and end at Pineland Farms in Gloucester. FMI and to register

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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