BROOKLIN, Maine — A small island separating Eggemoggin Reach from Blue Hill Bay has become the latest addition to a chain of islands owned and maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Mahoney Island, a 6 acre island approximately one mile off Naskeag Point in Brooklin, has been acquired and transferred to the federal agency to become part of the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge, according to a recent statement from Maine Coast Heritage Trust. The trust recently acquired the island from a private owner using money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The fund, founded in 1965, is the recipient each year of $900 million in royalties paid by energy companies that drill for oil and gas offshore along the outer continental shelf, according to information on the fund’s website. The intended purpose of the fund is to help conserve land and bodies of fresh water.
Mahoney Island is the 11th parcel of land the trust has added to the wildlife refuge in the past 10 years, the statement indicated. Overall, 60 islands and four coastal parcels are part of the refuge, which consists of more than 8,200 acres of diverse coastal habitat used by migratory and nesting seabirds.
Among the bird species known to frequent islands that are part of the refuge are puffins, razorbills, murres, black guillemots, Leach’s storm petrels, common eiders and bald eagles. Roseate, common and arctic terns nest on the islands, as do laughing, black-backed and herring gulls.
In the prepared statement, MCHT President Tim Glidden called Maine’s seabird nesting islands “an international treasure” and credited the state’s congressional delegation for helping to secure funds to protect them from potential development.
Beth Goettel, manager of the refuge, said in the release that the trust is a “critical partner” in negotiating and handling purchases that directly benefit the refuge.
Other islands that the trust has helped add to the refuge in the past decade include Compass Island between North Haven and Islesboro, North Twinnie Island in Bar Harbor, Sally Island and Sheep Island in Steuben, Jordans Delight in Harrington, and Spectacle Island in Eastport. Two parcels on Cross Island in Cutler, part of Metinic Island off the town of St. George, and Crow Island, which is part of the Muscle Ridge Islands off Spruce Head, have also become part of the refuge with assistance from the trust.
