Friends of Merrymeeting Bay’s seventh presentation of its 19th annual Winter Speaker Series, “Royalty of the River: Kennebec Sturgeon Status,” features Tom Squiers, fisheries biologist. The event, taking place April 13, 7 p.m., at Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant St., Brunswick, is free and open to the public.

Sturgeon, dating back 200 million years, are among the most primitive of the bony fish. With no internal skeleton, their body surface contains five rows of bony plates, or “scutes.” They are typically large, long-lived fish that inhabit a great diversity of riverine habitat, from the fast-moving freshwater riverine environment downstream and, for some species, into the offshore marine environment of the continental shelf. Sturgeon have been harvested typically for their roe, known as cavier and for their meat.

Merrymeeting Bay and the Kennebec estuary provide spawning and nursery habitat for the large — up to 20 feet — and threatened Atlantic sturgeon and steady habitat for the endangered shorter — 3-4 feet — shortnose sturgeon. Numbers of sturgeon in the Gulf of Maine are significantly lower than historical levels and have remained so for the past 100 years.

The Kennebec/Androscoggin and Bay may be the only remaining spawning areas in the Gulf of Maine. Originally decimated from overfishing, threats to the species continue from habitat degradation, dredging, accidental capture and potential injury and mortality as “incidental take” in other fisheries. Despite their diminished status, it has become common to see sturgeon leaping from the Bay in the summertime.

Squiers was employed by the Maine Department of Marine Resources for 36 years, retiring in 2009. For many years he directed their Stock Enhancement Division. Squiers’ responsibilities involved the management and restoration of diadromous fish which includes striped bass, American shad, alewife, blueback herring, rainbow smelt, Atlantic sturgeon, shortnose sturgeon, and American eel.

He conducted several studies to assess the status of shortnose sturgeon and Atlantic sturgeon in the Kennebec River. Squiers was a member of the Shortnose Sturgeon Recovery Team which published the Final Recovery Plan for the Shortnose

Sturgeon, Acipenser brevirostrum in 1998 and served on the Shortnose Sturgeon Status Review Team for the National Marine Fisheries Service which published the Biological Assessment of Shortnose Sturgeon in 2010. He was also a member of the Atlantic Sturgeon Status Review Team which published the Status Review of Atlantic Sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus in 1998. Squiers received his M.S. Degree in Zoology from the University of Maine in Orono in 1973.

FOMB hosts their Winter Speaker Series October-May on the second Wednesday of each month. The May 11th presentation, In the Company of Bears features Ben Kilham, Independent Wildlife Biologist and Author. Speaker Series presentations are always free and open to the public and supported by Patagonia, Inc. in Freeport. Visit fomb.org to see speaker biographies, full event schedules, become a member, and learn more about how you can help protect beautiful Merrymeeting Bay.

Turtle talk in Bowdoinham

On land, Maine is home to seven species of turtle most of which are not very common. Around Merrymeeting Bay in spring we often see snapping turtles laying eggs by the roadside but other species like the Blandings and Common Musk turtles are quite rare. Habitat loss (often vernal pools), contaminants, mortality from autos and collectors are all threats to these wonderful creatures.

Join Friends of Merrymeeting Bay and the Merrymeeting Art Center on Sunday, April 10 at 2 p.m. at the Art Center for an informative talk on turtles by Derek Yorks, a wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Based in Bangor, Yorks supervises field studies and conservation of rare turtles, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. Previously, Yorks conducted studies of wildlife road effects.

Sunday’s Turtle Talk! follows Friday’s grand opening of the Art Center’s new exhibit, “Vernal Pools: Turtles” opening this Friday, April 8 from 5-8 p.m. at the Merrymeeting Arts Center, 9 Main Street in Bowdoinham. This show features young artists under the age of 18 and promises to be a lively exploration of one of spring’s most fertile nurseries — vernal pools.