National Parks Traveler Podcast | Climate Change Impacts on Acadia

From Maine to Florida, coastal units of the National Park System are being impacted in various ways by the changing climate. Some of the impacts affect wildlife, some natural resources, and some the human populations who either live in or come to visit these beautiful areas.

At the National Parks Traveler. We’ve been working on a series of stories looking at these changes that are showing up.

In recent shows we’ve discussed impacts to manatees that live in the waters of Everglades and Biscayne national parks as well as Cumberland Island National Seashore, and how sea level rise is impacting salt marshes that are vital for wildlife and which serve as buffers to hurricanes and tropical storms.

At Acadia National Park in Maine, the impacts are materializing in various ways. 

Rainstorms are becoming heavier and more damaging, invasive species such as the Asian shore crab are showing up in the waters of Frenchman Bay, and the number of bird species that winter on Mount Desert Island have decreased.

To take a closer look at these changes, we’re joined by Nick Fisichelli, the president and CEO of the Schoodic Institute, a nonprofit science center based on the national park’s Schoodic Peninsula to discuss some of the impacts that have arrived and the research being done to better understand them.