- Up next on "Borealis".

(upbeat music) What it takes to rehabilitate stranded seal pups, so they can return to the Gulf of Maine.

For one family, it's a multi-generational tradition, the Maine Audubon Annual Loon Count.

We rode along.

And even though I hike a lot, it's not every day I carry a full bag of soil to the top of a mountain, but I did, and now, apparently, I'm considered a soil hero.

I'll tell you why.

Stay with us.

- [Narrator] Production support for "Borealis" is provided by.

- [Narrator] The Nature Conservancy in Maine, joining science, action, and innovative partners to help connect communities, and address the global climate crisis.

From our forest, to our rivers, to the Gulf of Maine, learn more at nature.org/joinmaine.

- [Narrator] At Poland Spring, we've called Maine home since 1845, and are proud to be part of the community.

Over the past two decades, investing more than $12 million in the place that we call home.

Poland Spring, 100% natural spring water.

- [Narrator] And by viewers like you, thank you.

- You guys ready to hike?

(upbeat music) ♪ I wanna get lost in the wilderness with you, darling ♪ ♪ Wanna get lost in the rivers and the roads ♪ ♪ Get you up on the mountainside ♪ ♪ Where we can just climb - Hello, I'm Aislinn Sarnacki.

Welcome to "Borealis."

We're here in Rockport Harbor, where a statue plays tribute to the most famous harbor seal in Maine, and pretty much anywhere.

Andre the seal lived in this harbor for 25 years, from 1981 to 1996, raised by Harbormaster Harry Goodridge.

♪ The heartwarming story of Andre the seal ♪ - The two were pretty much inseparable.

Andre inspired a song, several books, a documentary, and even a feature film.

Today, there are people who love Maine seals just as much as Harry Goodridge did.

Let me introduce you to the staff and volunteers of Marine Mammals of Maine.

(pleasant music) (seal barking) Each morning, the team at Marine Mammals of Maine is greeted by the cries of baby seals.

11 of them, all waiting to be fed.

Spring is a busy time of year here, the only rehabilitation center for seals in Maine.

(seal barks) It's pupping season, and up and down the coast, people are finding baby harbor seals that have been abandoned, and need help.

- This time of year, it's like an all hands on deck to be able to care for these animals, and we're- - [Aislinn] Lynda Doughty founded Marine Mammals of Maine in 2011.

The end goal is to return all of these baby seals to the wild, where they belong.

But first, they need help, and caring for them is a full-time job.

- At first, they're getting tubed with like a milk matrix formula, and it's got a little bit of fish, and milk matrix, and vitamins, and water, and it's like all blended up, and they get that about five times a day.

- [Aislinn] Feeding the seals by tube, rather than by bottle, reduces human contact, which is important in wildlife rehabilitation.

Fortunately, seals don't have the same gag reflex as humans.

(seal grunts) Caring for the baby seals is a cycle of feeding, cleaning, monitoring any health issues, and preparing for the next feeding.

The typical workday is from seven a.m. to 10 p.m., with select animals requiring check-ins overnight, as well.

- I don't know that you could do this kind of work without people who really cared, and you know, supported each other.

So, we're a very fortunate group, I think.

- [Aislinn] Some patients aren't strong enough to survive.

- [Lynda] It can be tough, it can be challenging, both for the individuals working with the animal to try to help them, and it's part of what we do, but it's not taken lightly.

We know not every seal is gonna survive that comes into our center, but we want to help the ones that need it as best we can.

- [Aislinn] While we were at the center, a newly rescued patient came in for triage.

Upon admission, the seal is immediately hydrated through an IV, then tested for common diseases.

Staff recorded its body temperature, weight, and any signs of infection.

Then it's placed in a quiet enclosure to relax, with a rolled towel to suckle on.

- She crawled through someone's backyard, and was just hanging out under an RV, and has clearly not been feeding for a while, and that animal would die without intervention, and I just, I can't imagine us and the public having to just sit there and watch that happen, and not be able to jump in and help.

- [Aislinn] Roberta Lynnworth, a volunteer, collected the seal, and transported her to the center.

- Without this organization, these seals would perish, and I love just being able to help with that.

They're beautiful creatures, and to be present when any seal, but especially one that you've helped to get the help they need when they're released, in the future, to be there?

Ah, it takes your breath away.

- [Aislinn] When Marine Mammals of Maine began rehabilitating seals in 2016, they only had room for two at a time.

- Now, we can actually hold 15 at one time, which seems like yay, we can help more animals, but there's still more animals that need care out there.

Each year, we keep trying to build it so that there'll be a year where we don't have to say no to an animal because of limiting rehab capacity in the northeast region.

- [Aislinn] After about four weeks of tube feeding, the seals are weaned onto fish.

If these two seals continue to thrive, they'll be the first harbor seal patients to be released back into the ocean this summer.

The organization has a multi-pronged mission.

In addition to rescuing individual animals, they work to educate the public, largely through social media, and they contribute to ongoing marine research.

At the University of Maine, researchers led by Kristina Cammen use seal skin collected by Marine Mammals of Maine to learn more about seal populations along the coast.

- We're particularly interested in diving into questions about how their DNA makes them more or less susceptible to certain diseases that we know have caused large scale die offs in the populations in recent years.

And we're also beginning to play in eDNA space, where we are seeing to what extent can we get that genetic information simply from a bucket of water.

- [Aislinn] PhD candidates Julia Sonnarborg and Christina McCosker work under Cammen's mentorship on numerous research projects that involve seals.

- For me, I typically am looking for what is in the water, so I wanna know, are there seals in this sample?

Would that imply that there are seals in the area where the sample was taken?

Are there also fish around that those seals might be eating?

And kind of try to understand who is inhabiting the water based on who is leaving behind pieces of DNA.

- They're kind of like the canary in a coal mine where they will provide an early indication of something in the environment.

So if we see a bunch of seals stranding on the beach, that could be an indication that something in the ocean, there's a threat that we need to watch out for.

- [Aislinn] The Gulf of Maine sees four species of seals.

The harbor seal, and the gray seal live here year round, while the other two, the harp and the hooded, are just seasonal visitors.

In order to study the current seal population, it's important to have an understanding of the history of seals in this area, Cammen said.

- There's evidence suggests seals were abundant in Maine's history, even before it was the state of Maine.

There's evidence that the Native American peoples who lived along the coast of Maine, or what is now Maine, hunted seals.

And so, we see evidence of that in the archeological record.

The next step of where we have documentation comes from the early European explorers.

So late 1400s, early 1500s, we see the Europeans arrive, and they write in their ship logs about shores that are covered with seals.

- [Aislinn] From the late 1800s, to the mid 1900s, Massachusetts, Maine and Atlantic Canada had government financed bounties on seals, because they were seen as competition for local fishermen.

- [Kristina] And we think that something like, in the ballpark of 100,000 seals were probably killed during that timeframe.

- [Aislinn] In 1972, the US Marine Mammal Protection Act made it illegal to kill seals, and Maine seal population began to recover.

- And so at that point, the bounties were no longer in place, the harbor seal population started recovering.

We saw really nice growth starting in the 1970s, through the sort of early 2000s, and then that population may be starting to level off.

Gray seals started recovering later, but from about the 1990s to today, their population has been exponentially growing, and it's continuing to grow.

(waves crashing) - [Aislinn] Let's fast forward a month or so.

Today is the big day.

The two seals we watched being fed fish at the rehabilitation center are being released back into the wild.

- Once they start to come out and be released, just give them their space, and not try to go after them in the water or anything.

They may hang around for the day.

They may play with the seaweed.

They just are gonna be exploring, because this is, you know, they're young, they're little juveniles, and they're out in the wild, and being free for the first time in a long time.

So, we wanna give them a good sendoff.

- [Aislinn] On a private beach, a group of supporters gathered to witness the event.

- [Crowd] Four, three, two, one.

(emotional music) - We really are doing around the clock care for them, and it's really, really special to be able to see them released, 'cause it's kind of all this hard work paid off.

- It might cause a few tears, why I'm wearing sunglasses today - [Aislinn] The seals are tagged, so if spotted in the wild, they can be identified.

- It was amazing, I mean, I feel like it's a little bittersweet.

You want this outcome, you want them to be able to have the second chance to go home.

This is where they belong, and this is where we want them to thrive.

But at the same time, you put so much work and effort in to like, caring for them, and nurturing them, that it's a little sad when you see them leave.

You're like, I'll miss you a little bit.

I hope to honestly never see them again, but in the best way.

I just want them to be able to live their life now, and get that second chance to really enjoy it that they deserve.

- [Lynda] I feel relieved.

I wanna make sure that they still, they'll take them a little bit to kind of get acquainted with their surroundings, but we still have more animals to care for at our center, so it's on to the next round of patients that we have.

- If you see a seal that you believe has been stranded, do your best to identify the exact location, and call the Marine Mammals of Maine hotline at (800) 532-9551.

And know these guidelines.

Stay at least 150 feet away from the seal, and keep others away from it too.

And keep pets on leash.

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it's illegal to touch, feed, disturb, or harass marine mammals.

It's one of the most distinctive sounds of summer in Maine, the haunting call of the loon.

People love loons, and want to protect them.

In fact, they're at the center of one of the largest, and longest running citizen science projects in the state, the Maine Audubon Loon count.

We wanted to see what it was all about, so we got up early one day in July, and headed over to the Belgrade Lakes.

(gentle music) Every year, on the third Saturday of July, the Bessey family gets up early.

They gather in the kitchen, grab some warm beverages, then head out to their boat.

- Come on, Oakley.

- Okay, all aboard.

- Good boy.

- [Aislinn] All around the state of Maine, more than 1,000 volunteers are doing the same thing.

From seven o'clock to 7:30, sharp, they're all looking for one of Maine's most iconic animals, the common loon.

(loon calling) The annual loon count is organized by the Maine Audubon.

This is its 40th year, a milestone.

- It's huge.

There's not very many community science, or citizen science projects that have been going on for 40 years.

So to be able to have 40 years of data on the loon count population is a big deal.

- [Aislinn] Coordinator Hannah Young says The count officially began in 1983, after people noticed a decline in loon populations throughout the northeast.

Since then, the project has steadily grown.

Last year, 1,600 volunteers surveyed Maine's lakes and ponds on the big day.

- I think there's a lot of reasons it's important.

One is to know what's going on with the loon population in Maine.

You know, an indicator, then, of what's going on in the water in Maine.

You know, loons need this kind of clean, clear water.

So if we're seeing a decline in the population, we need to look and see, okay, what else is going on?

- [Aislinn] Based on count data, Maine's loon population is on the rise, estimated at more than 3,000 adult loons for the southern half of the state.

- There's so much water in Maine, it's really important that we protect it for the loons, for ourselves.

What I love about the loon count is that so many people are getting to get out there, see the loons, and then also be a part of the conservation.

- [Aislinn] Each volunteer is responsible for a specific survey area, whether it's the entirety of a small pond, or a piece of a large lake.

The area has to be small enough to cover in 30 minutes.

On Great Pond in Belgrade, the Bessey family is responsible for surveying the cove where their camp is located.

- It's actually, it's a very nice morning.

Bit of a breeze, fresh breeze, no rain, just nice to be out.

The survey area begins at a stream here, coming in from the next pond over, Salmon Pond.

And it goes up to the point of Horse Point.

And then all of this area in between is our survey area.

That's where we'll be going right now.

- [Aislinn] For the Bessey family, the loon count is a tradition that spans four generations.

They've been a part of it since it began.

- My mother was an avid birder.

She would get up early in the mornings, and take my brother, and or me, through the woods to listen, and to spot birds.

And when Audubon began the loon count, she was one of the first volunteers.

She did it every year until she left us, and I and my siblings have carried on the tradition ever since.

This year is like a lot of others where it's become almost a reason for the family to gather.

- [Aislinn] Chip Bessey's granddaughters say they'd like to keep the tradition going.

It helps them feel connected to their great-grandmother.

- I'm doing what she did, so it's like I'm doing, like I'm there with her almost.

- I feel like it's just like, a part of what we do up here.

I don't know, like you come up, you go tubing, you go water skiing, you lay out by the lake, you go swimming, you can do the loon count.

- [Aislinn] Over the years, the girls have gotten better at spotting loons.

- They have red eyes, so.

- That's scary.

- Yes, those little beady red eyes.

Their patterns are- - Very different.

Especially with the black, 'cause like- - And the little white choker?

- Yeah.

- Very hip.

- [Aislinn] The family counts three loons during the half hour count.

- Ah, I think that we see one, he just dove.

Oh, I see.

Way over.

See him, at about 11 o'clock?

- [Aislinn] Efforts to protect Maine's loon population are ongoing.

The Maine legislature passed legislation banning the use of lead fishing tackle, which can poison loons, and data from the annual count helps Audubon pinpoint locations to place floating nest platforms, which could improve loon chick survival.

Loons build their nest along the shore, where flooding and boat wakes can easily wash them away.

Chip Bessey is glad that his family can do their small part to help keep the loon population healthy in Maine.

- [Chip] Let's face it, like moose, loons are iconic to Maine.

(loon calls) The sound, the way they look, watching them fishing in the lakes, diving and coming back up 100 yards away.

- When the clock strikes 7:30, the count ends.

But the Besseys continue to watch the loons, and listen to their haunting call all summer long.

And next year, on the third Saturday of July, they'll pile into the boat, and count them again.

(loons calling) If you enjoy boating, slow down and keep your distance from loons.

One of the leading causes of adult loon deaths is boat strikes.

The Maine Audubon expects to release the results for the 40th annual count in December.

(upbeat music) Why would Acadia National Park ask volunteers to carry heavy bags of dirt up some of the park's tallest mountains?

On a balmy summer day, I visited the park to find out, and to participate in an event called Save Our Summits.

(upbeat music continues) - And there's snacks- - Save our Summits is a new project to restore vegetation on the mountains of Acadia National Park.

Restoring plants requires one key material, soil.

And today, there's only one way to get the soil where it needs to go.

(shovel scrapes) That's right, we're going to haul it up, by the bag full.

I don't know how much to take.

I don't know how much to take.

How much should I take?

(Aislinn laughs) I think I'm doing 15.

- Good for you.

- I think 15.

20 seems a bit excessive.

You're gonna give me 20, and say it was 15.

- [Volunteer] I'm not, I would never, I would never.

- Oh, it does feel like 15.

- Yeah, it's 15.

Definitely.

- Yeah.

- [Volunteer] Yeah, five less.

- I am carrying 15 pounds of soil today, and it feels good.

I don't think I took too much.

We'll see if I feel that way when we're going on the trail, though.

72 volunteers are hiking soil to the summit of Sargent and Penobscot Mountains today.

Tim Schorer, and his two Goldendoodles, Cooper and Scout, are among them.

- Well, we live on the island so we, you know, we feel a certain amount of ownership, or stewardship.

You know, I think it gives you more appreciation for the park, and more insight into the park.

You know, when you can walk on a bog walk, and say, we built that.

Or you know, you build a fence, and that keeps people from wearing out part of the park.

You know, I feel it's important.

It's good use of my time.

- [Aislinn] Participants in the event earn the title of soil hero.

And while some soil heroes are local residents, others have never experienced the beauty of Acadia National Park before.

For two men from Connecticut, it's their first time in the park.

- The only park I've been to before this is, was in Arizona.

So, to see this much green, and the forests right next to a coast is insane.

- Me, I definitely am gonna come back here, yeah.

I'm gonna come back, because I like it.

It's very beautiful.

- Hiking's already, like, a very fulfilling feeling getting to the top of a summit, looking around, and to just have some added service on top of that is great.

- [Aislinn] We're headed to areas where hikers have unintentionally stomped plants out of existence.

- [Chris] This is an example of a type of location that we want to restore.

- [Aislinn] A climate change adaptation scientist with the Schoodic Institute, Chris Nadeau is one of the top researchers for the project.

- So you can see here that there was probably one big island of vegetation, but now there's this path right through the middle, right?

And that's so you can walk out, and go see that beautiful view.

Now, because that vegetation has been killed, that soil has washed away, right?

And now plants can't regenerate in this space right here.

And so, the idea of what we'll do is we'll be filling these kind of areas in with soil, and then letting the plants kind of colonize those soil patches naturally, to kind of fill in these spots.

And one important reason we need to do that is because right now, if we don't, then the erosion that's already happened will continue to expand, and so these islands of vegetation will just get smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and completely disappear.

- [Aislinn] Over the past seven years, Nadeau has been experimenting with methods to restore those eroded areas.

He finds that using burlap sacks and erosion fabric stops the soil from just blowing off the mountain.

- We don't want all the people that hiked soil up here today, we don't want that soil to just blow off the mountain.

And then we've just raked in kind of seeds, and microbes from the existing island of vegetation.

And now, we'll just let this regenerate on its own, and our research over the last seven years or so has shown that that's enough.

Just bringing up about an inch of soil, and then just letting the plants colonize that soil naturally, that's enough.

(people chattering) - Woo-hoo!

(Aislinn chuckles) - Friends of Acadia, a nonprofit organization that supports the park, teamed up with the park and Schoodic Institute to organize the event.

Friends of Acadia president and CEO, Eric Stiles, hauled up soil with the rest of the volunteers.

It was a pleasure to hike up here with you today.

- It really was, and you're keeping a good pace.

- Thanks, thanks, you too.

What does it mean for you to participate today?

Why was it important?

- So, my wife jokes that the only place we vacation more than once is Acadia.

So, we first came up here in 1993, and it's just been a special place for our families.

As our kids have grown, they're now 19 and 22, getting to experience peaks like Sargent, getting to go to Seawall and play in tide pools.

So, the ability to come back, and give back to a place that is so important, it's part of our heart and soul, it's powerful.

This restoration is borne on the backs of people that are giving freely of themselves, that are putting on their boots, putting on their backpack, and are, you know, they are so proud to be part of this.

- [Aislinn] So, why not just drop off the soil with a helicopter?

Acadia public affairs officer, Amanda Pollock, says that method was considered, but in the end, park management decided it would be more beneficial and efficient to have volunteers carry up the soil.

- Community initiated stewardship is really important to Acadia National Park.

And by being able to include our community in this project, hopefully, you know, someday when they, people might wanna come back up with their kids, or their grandkids, they can point at some of this vegetation and say, I helped make this happen.

- Today, volunteers carried over 1,500 pounds of soil to the summits of Sargent and Penobscot Mountains.

But it's on Cadillac Mountain, Acadia's tallest and most popular mountain, that the project began.

We're here on the summit of Cadillac Mountain, and I wanted to ask you, what makes this place special to the Summit Restoration Project?

- About 25 years ago, we recognized that we were losing a surprising amount of the vegetation on the summit.

And it's very fragile vegetation, and it takes a long time to grow back.

And so, that was when we really started our effort.

And the first thing we wanted to do is just keep people off of it, and see how fast it would grow back on its own.

And it turns out that this is a really hard place for plants to grow, because they're exposed to the wind, and the ice, and the snow in the winter.

It dries, 'cause the soil's really thin.

And so, plants just didn't come back.

After 20 years of letting letting them try to grow back, we saw really no change, even though we knew people weren't walking on it.

And that was when we realized that we needed to really take active action to restore the plants.

- [Aislinn] Climate change is a major consideration when planning plant restoration.

Many of the experiments being conducted atop Cadillac have to do with figuring out which plants will survive the predicted warmer temperatures, and heavy rain events?

- As we're planning what plants, and the strategies to use to restore, we really wanna make sure that we're setting up the plants and the soils to be able to persist as the climate continues to change.

So, we don't want to necessarily set things up as they were in the past.

We wanna set things up so that they can survive into the future.

- On the next episode of "Borealis."

(pleasant music) Whitewater kayaking enthusiasts aim to grow their sport with a variety of races in a new whitewater park in Skowhegan.

Only a fraction of registered Maine guides are women.

A training program aims to boost their ranks.

And look closely, the Maine woods are replete with beautiful mushrooms, many of them edible.

We'll go foraging.

As we say goodbye, we leave you in the skies over Mars Hill in Aroostook County.

Thank you for joining us for "Borealis."

I hope you'll return.

(upbeat music) ♪ From the ocean, move me by how ♪ ♪ Human you are (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues)