Marine Sciences students exhibit research, build community at Camp Ellis HarborFest

Three student researchers from UNE’s Shark and Fish Ecology Lab made a splash at the 2024 Camp Ellis HarborFest on Sunday, Aug. 4, showcasing their work to local fishermen and members of the community and celebrating Saco’s rich maritime history.

UNE students Ben Gowell (Marine Sciences, ’25), Jessie Maguire (M.S. Marine Sciences, ’26), and Kade Tyrrell (Marine Sciences, ’24) donned waders and UNE gear for the event, which was held on the city’s pier, just across the Saco River from their lab in UNE’s Arthur P. Girard Marine Science Center.

HarborFest is a grassroots community festival that recognizes the contributions of Camp Ellis’ active, working waterfront as well as local efforts to restore the coastal village’s beach, which has seen significant decline due to intense storms. The celebration traces its roots to the late 1970s and was brought back in 2023.

As research assistants in the Shark and Fish Ecology Lab — led by John Mohan, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Marine and Environmental Programs — Gowell, Maguire, and Tyrrell use interdisciplinary techniques to advance research with direct applications to fisheries management and conservation.

Throughout HarborFest, the trio answered questions from the public about their ongoing research with striped bass, shark bycatch reduction, and white shark monitoring.

UNE has for three years partnered with the Maine Department of Marine Resources to place real-time shark detection buoys in Saco Bay. When tagged white sharks pass within 500 meters of a buoy, an alert is sent to the free Sharktivity mobile application, alerting both lifeguards and the public of their presence.

Students are also pioneering the use of electric deterrents to reduce spiny dogfish interactions in recreational and commercial fisheries — protecting both fishermen and the small sharks — and they are monitoring commercially important populations of striped bass in Maine’s rivers and estuaries.

Rounding out their day at HarborFest, the group displayed and later dissected two bluefin tuna heads, answered questions about the fish, and taught children and others about life in the marine sciences.

“All around, it was a fun time showing the public what we do in the Shark and Fish Ecology Lab,” said Tyrrell, who will graduate with his bachelor’s degree in marine sciences this December.