BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 11, 2024
Walking the sun-dappled trails of the Wells Reserve on a mild summer day, past stands of swamp maple and quaking aspen, surrounded by birdsong, it is hard to imagine that children who wander these paths today may live to see them become mud flats, or even open ocean. Scientists have been warning about this possibility for years. A 2014 report, produced in part by researchers at the Reserve, predicts that sea level rise will fully submerge the Reserve’s estuarine lands by the end of the century and force marshy areas of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge to migrate inland. “In the shorter term,” researchers wrote, “it is unclear whether Wells’ marshes will have room to migrate upland, and whether they will be able to migrate quickly enough.”