 Hello, my name is Sally Stockwell, Director of Conservation at Maine Audubon. I have been working with loons and the loon counts since the late 1980s at Maine Audubon. And I feel so fortunate that we have all these loons on all these lakes across the state of Maine. But it wasn't always like that. Back in the early 1970s, there was a noticeable decline and in 1983 we worked with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the University of Maine to see if we could track the population trend over time. Since then, every year, we have had volunteers that go out on lakes to count chicks and adults so that we can figure out what the overall population trend is. These loon counters do way more than just participate in the loon count. They are incredibly dedicated. Some of them look out for loon signs up near nests or at boat ramps to warn people. Some people hand out brochures to their neighbors, to other lake dwellers, to lake associations. Some folks show up in Augusta and testify on bills that will reduce lead tackle that loons can ingest or provide funding for managing aquatic invasive species or try to reduce boating impacts on loons. Today we have 1,600 volunteers that regularly participate in the loon count. Some of them have been counting since the very beginning, so 40 years. So thank you so much to all the volunteers who have made that possible. My name is Will Reed. I live in Skellhegan, just down the road 5-6 miles. I've been at this camp in this location with Westerunds at Lake since 1974. I've been doing the loon count since 1983. I've often thought, why am I interested in loons? They're just a large, noisy, fish-eating bird, but you know, there's a charm to them. They're iconic. You know, they're on our license plates. They're magnificent. There's one particular one that we notice has a red marker on his foot. We can usually spot him because he's quite large. Striking colorations. You see them on good years with some chicks, you know, they call day and night. And then just kind of when they're aimlessly floating along. I don't know, there's something about them that's endearing. And having the loons means that the lake is probably quite pristine. That's always a good sign when the loons are there. I like listening to the loons, and I think it was two years ago that we saw mother loon and two of her babies. To keep that population going, you've got to monitor it, going to know what's going on year-to-year. You've got to know of nesting locations, but not advertise where they are. It's essential for the people that live around the lake and to see if there's a problem or if there's something they can do to promote the loon population. So you've got to monitor it, got to get that data as we said before, that's the key. As with any citizen science program, you're gathering more widespread data than a small you know team of researchers or scientists would be able to gather. We're really data collectors, we're really technicians, but that's okay, that's great. You need technicians in this world to get the stuff for the people that are smart to use. First year we came out, and it was all fogged in, it was about 630. Oh yeah. It was the year where we saw the loon, and then we tried to figure out what was on its back to see if it was like food, and it turned out to be two babies learning how to swim. But right at 7, the fog had started to lift, and we could hear a saw-what-owl in the background, and it was just totally silent, and the fog lifted, and you could hear the loon, and then all of a sudden like they came into view, it was very, very cool. Hopefully this year we'll have some babies. It's always important that the population is growing. I don't think you have to have a science background to do this. I don't. I majored in English, so you have to appreciate science, and I think follow the guidelines and so on. You just have to have a love for loons. Some of these smaller ponds, some of them I look at Caesar pond and be like, oh yeah, that's not really big enough, but in fact we've had a pair out here who've been you know, nesting since we've been counting, but whenever we're out here, you know, there's usually other people who then ask questions, and so it's really an opportunity for outreach and education, and I think also by Phoebe learning about it that she's able then to spread that information to other people as well, and it's just sort of this ripple effect of really just information getting out there. I definitely see it as a major driver for people. If that's their lever to get into thinking about the whole lake or that's their door to coming in, then pretty soon they're learning about invasive species. Pretty soon they're learning about lakes. If the loons population is on this particular lake, that means the lake is clean, and I belong to the Little Ossopy Lake Association and they know that I count the loons, so that's important to them to know that the lake is kept clean. We had an area recently here on the northern part of the lake that we had Eurasian water mill foil, and so we were putting in for a sur, you know, a surface area restriction for that area, and boy, there were people who knew so much that there was a pair of loons that nested in that area. People spoke out, and I think it was the connection with that loon nest. I really do. The more Maine Audubon can educate people about loons, how to be careful around loons and how to care for them, and get people involved in the count and taking ownership of it makes a huge difference. It's something we have to do to, you know, maintain this wildlife population. That's very important to me, and I think it should be important to a lot of people, because wildlife is very important. We all benefit from it. I don't care who you are. We're not out of the woods yet, you know, we need to still be doing what we need to do to protect them. I think people are always looking for ways to get involved, and I feel like the loon count is something that's so incredibly accessible, because it's a half an hour, once a year. You basically show up, you don't have to have a boat, you can do it from the shore. You know, they can always find a spot for you. And most of the places, you're usually guaranteed to see some. I think the numbers are somewhat increasing, I hope. It's pretty stable on Little Ossopy Lake. We got to keep going here. We kind of hardly just cracked the surface of what I think we can do across the state. It doesn't take that much time and effort, really. It's just writing down a few numbers about how many loons you see, and it does a lot of good for everybody, and it's wonderful. You can't beat it. Hi, I'm Hannah Young. I'm the loon count coordinator at Maine Audubon. Last year, our loon count volunteers counted on 361 lakes across the name, an account estimated over 3,050 adults and almost 300 chicks from the Southern Lakes. So this is just slightly above average for adults and then slightly below average for chicks. Now, it's important to recognize that the count only includes lakes south of the 45th parallel. So we used to do aerial surveys in the north. We no longer do that, but the cool thing then is to realize that there's actually more loons than what the count is estimating. Maine has the most number of loons of any state in the east, so that's more than 100 to 300 pairs in New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire. That is really in thanks to our wonderful group of dedicated loon counters. The loon count has over 1,600 volunteers, and this project wouldn't be possible without them, especially without the help of our dedicated regional coordinators who help coordinate all of these counters throughout the state. So what does the future look like for the loon count? Well, we hope to get more and more people across Maine involved in this project. We would love to cover some more of the north. We just last year in 2022 had a Sibago Lake fully covered for the first time, so we would love to continue hitting really wonderful milestones like that. The loon count is this incredible moment in time where everyone across Maine that's involved is doing the same thing at the same time. It's a really wonderful way that people show how much they value their lakes and their loons, and we would love to keep that going.