Roger Pielke had come to Maine to speak at the University of Maine's Mitchell Center for Sustainability, traveling to the state from Colorado, where he is director of the University of Colorado's Center for Science. After speaking, he hoped to head to Bar Harbor to see Acadia National Park and dine at one of the seaside town's restaurants. But which restaurant?

The Conservation Law Foundation has worked for years to permanently protect the remarkable Cashes Ledge area. This biodiversity hotspot provides refuge for a stunning array of ocean wildlife—from Atlantic cod to endangered right whales, bluefin tuna to Atlantic wolf fish—and a rare lush kelp forest.

According to Welch, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is very concerned about Maine's arctic tern population which has decreased about 50 percent during the past ten years. The birds are not producing as many chicks along the Gulf of Maine as they have in the past and not as many birds are returning to the breeding colonies each year.

The coast of Maine and neighboring Maritime Canada are extraordinary in many ways, but there is one way in which we are truly unique on the planet—the height of our tides.

Our social ties are very tight along the coast, and there is a great deal of information available to leaders working to solve community challenges.

Chris Warner, a professional shellfish harvester in Georgetown, has been working with Dr. Brian Beal of the Downeast Institute and Dr. John Hagan of Manomet to pioneer technology that appears to beat the green crab.

They worked, smart phones at their sides, talked with each other incessantly, laughing. I loved it.

There's one more day of summer showing on the calendar as this column is being written, but the signs of autumn are everywhere on the coast of Maine.

The results of the assessment were no surprise. It comes down to location. The southern New England (SNE) stock remained in very poor condition, while the Gulf of Maine (GOM) and Georges Bank (GBK) stocks are thriving.