The Maine Question

Maple syrup is a staple product in Maine, and many rejoice when the sugaring season returns each year. At the end of winter when the temperatures are just right, producers harvest gallons of sap to transform into sweet syrup inside their sugar shacks.

In this episode of “The Maine Question” podcast, Jason Lilley, a sustainable agriculture professional with University of Maine Cooperative Extension, describes how the producers make maple syrup from sap. He also discusses the future of the maple industry in Maine and shares a few tips and recipes.

Aquaculture is a growing industry in Maine. It yields more than $100 million in overall economic impact each year, nearly three times as much as the $50 million it contributed in 2007. Farmers and businesses in working waterfronts support themselves and the economy by cultivating Atlantic salmon, oysters, seaweed and many other aquatic flora and fauna. Despite the increased consumption of seafood harvested from Maine waters, the industry faces several hurdles to further expansion. Most Americans consume fish from overseas, and many wild-caught populations are in severe decline and danger of collapse.

The Maine Aquaculture Roadmap, 2022–2032 was created to help tackle the challenges the state aquaculture industry faces and identify resources to support it. In this episode of “The Maine Question,” Heather Sadusky, marine extension associate with Maine Sea Grant and coordinator for the Maine Aquaculture Hub, and Deborah Bouchard, director of the University of Maine Aquaculture Research Institute, describe this 10-year plan to bolster the industry.

Much of the knowledge about Native Americans comes from people who are not Indigenous. Euro-American archaeologists in particular have held notable influence on how people think about Native Americans’ past and present. A team of Wabanaki researchers and students is looking to change that dynamic. They aim to reframe how their ancestors' stories are told.

In this episode of “The Maine Question,” Bonnie Newsom, a member of the Penobscot Nation and an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Maine, and Isaac St. John, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Houlton band of Maliseet Indians and a graduate student at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, discuss their work to change public perception of Wabanaki stories and reconnect Indigenous people with their past.

Maine faces many complex entrepreneurial, economic, environmental and educational challenges. To help tackle them, the University of Maine created the Portland Gateway, a one-stop connection to UMaine’s vast resources. True to its name, the gateway provides companies and municipalities across Maine access to the university research, resources and personnel to help solve problems and support initiatives for growth.

In this episode of “The Maine Question,” Alice Pips Veazey, the director of the Portland Gateway, discusses the birth of this initiative and the difference she sees it making in southern Maine and the entire state.

No place on earth can escape the effects of climate change, not even Mount Everest. The highest glacier on the world’s tallest mountain — the South Col Glacier — is rapidly disappearing. A new University of Maine-led study found that the glacier is losing several decades of ice and snow accumulation annually due to human-induced climate change.

These findings are the latest from the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, led by UMaine Climate Change Institute director Paul Mayewski. In this episode of “The Maine Question,” Mayewski and UMaine Ph.D. candidate Mariusz Potocki, both co-authors of the new study, elaborate on the findings and their implications for mountaineering and the glacier stored water on which more than 1 billion people depend to provide melt for drinking water and irrigation. They also describe what it takes to conduct research on the rooftop of the world.

Maine may lose two tidal marsh songbird species in the next few decades. Salt marsh sparrows face extinction, while Acadian Nelson’s sparrows are threatened with extirpation — localized eradication with the possibility of survival elsewhere. Their populations along the Eastern Seaboard have been declining as sea level rise destroys their habitats and, according to a new University of Maine-led study, mercury exposure inhibits their reproduction. In the final episode of Season 5 of “The Maine Question,” Kate Ruskin, a lecturer in ecology and environmental science at UMaine who spearheaded the recent mercury exposure study, and Brian Olsen, who is now an associate provost at the university, discuss the challenges these songbirds face, and what can be done to prevent their loss. They also describe their fieldwork and the benefits for students who participate in it.

Supply chain problems are occupying many people’s minds, especially with the holidays around the corner. Numerous newspaper stories and TV segments have featured images of cargo ships waiting for days or weeks to unload their goods from Asia into ports up and down the West Coast. Americans are witnessing shortages of many products they once took for granted, including lumber, various food items and computer chips, among others. Demand for goods has grown, yet producers are struggling to keep up after a slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this week’s episode of “The Maine Question,” Patti Miles, an associate professor of management science with the Maine Business School at the University of Maine, breaks down the issues surrounding supply chain woes. She discusses the bottlenecks and other problems, when they might ease and whether people will get their holiday gifts on time.

Training to become a nurse has always been rigorous. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the stress and workload for nursing students and the medical professionals under whom they train, but it also provided a new opportunity for experiential learning. The School of Nursing at the University of Maine decided early in the pandemic to lend a hand wherever possible — training virtually every student to vaccinate patients against COVID-19 and provide other support. More than 400 UMaine nursing students have administered about 12,000 vaccines since January. In this episode of “The Maine Question,” host Ron Lisnet speaks with Kelley Strout, director of the UMaine School of Nursing, about that major undertaking and what it's like to be a nursing student. They discuss what students learn, the classes they take, the experiences in which they have been involved and more. Strout also describes ways nursing students, nurses and other medical professionals can avoid burnout and measures that can help satisfy the huge demand for nurses in the future.

The moose has become so synonymous with Maine that it serves as the state animal. Residents and tourists alike scout the forests and mountains to catch at least a glimpse of this majestic mammal, and their odds aren’t too slim. Maine has the highest wild moose population in the lower 48 states, with 60,000–80,000 roaming the woods. Their population is considered stable, but it faces a tiny, yet lethal, threat: winter ticks. Moose populations along the southern edge of their range in the U.S. have been declining due to winter ticks, or moose ticks, and other parasites. Some moose carry as many as 70,000 ticks. Calves are especially at risk, as those with heavy tick loads often die in their first winter. Pauline Kamath, an assistant professor of animal health, is studying the impact of ticks on moose survival. On this episode of “The Maine Question,” she speaks with host Ron Lisnet about winter ticks and how they threaten the viability of Maine’s state animal.

Maine is known as Vacationland to lovers of outdoor recreation from around the world. An industry grew out of Mainers’ and tourists’ passion for hiking, biking, kayaking, skiing and other outside pastimes, and it generates $3 billion in economic activity for the state. The Outdoor Leadership program at UMaine was created to take advantage of this opportunity.

Working with an existing program at the University of Maine at Machias and University of Maine Cooperative Extension 4-H camps, this new program is preparing students for careers in tourism, education and other fields that pertain to outside activities and learning. In this episode of “The Maine Question,” we head outside with a roundtable discussion that explores the outdoor recreation industry.