UNE receives grant from Davis Conservation Foundation to support Citizen Science Project

The Davis Conservation Foundation recently approved a $5,000 proposal submitted by UNE’s Office of Institutional Advancement to support the Citizen Science Project.

The Citizen Science Project is a community-driven field research project intended to monitor the movement and feeding patterns of the endangered shortnose and threatened Atlantic species of sturgeon in the Saco River estuary.  

This $5,000 grant will go towards involving community volunteers, local K-12 students and teachers in collecting, measuring, tagging and monitoring data about these species of sturgeon.

The funded project will inform researchers about the potential recovery of the species, the need for habitat preservation and the implications of man-made changes to the estuarine portion of the river. It will also serve to connect community and student volunteers to their local environment and the issues of habitat preservation.

The Davis Conservation Foundation is a public charitable foundation established in 1989 by Phyllis C. Davis and H. Halsey Davis of Falmouth, Maine. It aims to support protection of the environment and conservation of natural resources.  The Foundation has been an important partner to UNE in the past, most notably helping to secure the 161 acre preserved wetlands adjacent to the University’s Biddeford Campus with a generous donation in 2009.