Caribou Bog-Penjajawoc Lands Celebration Scheduled June 15
The Orono Land Trust and the Bangor Land Trust, working for several years with multiple partners and donors, including the University of Maine, have successfully secured the permanent conservation of 2,738 additional acres of working forests, meadows, wetlands and lakeshores in Bangor, Orono and Old Town. They’ll celebrate the achievement this week.
Most of the acreage comprises working landscapes now open for recreational activities such as hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hunting, fishing, trapping, and snowmobiling in designated areas.
On Wednesday, June 15, representatives from the university and collaborating partners will celebrate the conclusion of this phase of the Caribou Bog – Penjajawoc Project by placing new signs at Perch Pond to commemorate the work. Participants in the ceremony, and interested members of the public, will meet in the parking lot by the university Steam Plant at 1 p.m. before driving to Perch Pond. The pond, formerly called Mud Pond, is on Poplar Street, off the Kirkland Road in Stillwater.
The expansion project involved extensive work with landowners and developers to protect and connect key land parcels ranging from 43 to 1,100 acres, while also raising $1.2 million to support the conservation effort and expand protected areas within the corridor. Each parcel has intrinsic habitat and recreation values enhanced by connections to other parcels, providing for larger recreational trail networks and travel corridors for wildlife, proponents say.
The additional 2,738 acres brings the total conserved acreage in the corridor to 7,508 acres. Twenty-four organizations, plus private donors, played a role in the expansion.
In commemorative remarks Wednesday, cooperating partners will emphasize the forestry, wildlife and recreational value of the conserved property through shared management.
The strategic collaboration, says Sally Jacobs, Caribou Bog – Penjajawoc Conservation Committee spokesperson, “will contribute to the long-term success of the corridor as a recreational and wildlife asset for people who reside in the Bangor area or visit here.”
In addition to the two land trusts, project partners include the University of Maine, the University of Maine Foundation, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Land for Maine’s Future Program and the Forest Society of Maine.
The expansion is a phase of the original late-1990’s vision of the Caribou Bog – Penjajawoc Corridor Project — to conserve and connect large unbroken blocks of land to provide for recreational trail networks, wildlife habitat, sustainable forestry, water access, traditional outdoor sports, and environmental education and research.
A key piece of that was a 1,100-acre donation of land in Old Town to the project, according to Amos Orcutt, president and CEO of the University of Maine Foundation. The Birminghams had gifted the land to the Foundation, which, with the family’s approval, donated the property to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
“We are grateful to Les and Jo Birmingham of Freeport for their gift of land in the Caribou Bog and for their support of the Foundation (then) deeding the land to the corridor project,” Orcutt says.
The donation, combined with the university’s gift of working-forest conservation easements on three parcels totaling 660 acres within the corridor, leveraged the purchase of the 853-acre Perch Pond Woodlot. The purchase was possible thanks to matching funds from the Land for Maine’s Future Program and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA), through the Orono Land Trust.
The project was deemed significant enough that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers NAWCA grants, recognized UMaine for its involvement in this and other projects. The Fish and Wildlife Service listed UMaine as its top university land-conservation partner, which played a nationally significant role in NAWCA conservation projects.
Contact: Al Kimball, (207) 581-2849; George Manlove, (207) 581-3756