More than 125 boats participated in a weekend protest against plans for an aquaculture operation in waters near Acadia National Park.
Commercial and recreational vessels comprised the “Save the Bay” flotilla that motored around Frenchman Bay on Sunday. Some people on land also participated by holding signs stating their opposition.
Clockwise from left: A long line of boats parade through Bar Harbor in protest of American Aquafarms’ proposal for an industrial salmon farm in Frenchman Bay; with Cadillac Mountain and Acadia National Park in the background, a procession of lobster boats and pleasure craft head toward Bar Harbor; and the 125-boat “Save the Bay” flotilla passed by the Bar Harbor town pier where more people holding signs against the fish farm were gathered. Credit: Courtesy of Henry Sharpe and Ted O’Meara
American Aquafarms has proposed raising 66 million pounds of Atlantic salmon annually at a pair of 15-pen sites off the coast of Gouldsboro in Frenchman Bay. The company didn’t immediately return a telephone message.
Ted O’Meara of Frenchman’s Bay United likened the scope of the project to “some huge hog farm from the Midwest and plucking it right in the middle of one of the most beautiful parts of Maine.”
“Our first goal is to stop this project, and our second goal is to look at changing some of the rules that allow people like this to think they can just come here and plug something like this down in our waters,” he said.
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