The Friends of Taunton Bay (FTB) is a grass roots organization founded in 1990. We primarily engage in research, education, and advocacy for the community regarding the Taunton Bay region.
The mission of the Friends of Taunton Bay is to understand and promote the health and integrity of the Taunton Bay ecosystem.
Rationale
A fertile and sheltered oasis at the heart of an increasingly commercial sector of Maine’s scenic coast, Taunton Bay deserves protection as a unique and self sustaining natural area largely unimpaired by human intervention. Once known for its timber, mining, quarrying, and shipbuilding industries, the bay is now the focus of a rural residential community linking the three towns of Hancock, Sullivan, and Franklin. It is a shallow embayment estuary having national significance because of its resident wildlife. The wildlife found at Taunton Bay includes nesting pairs of bald eagles and nesting pairs of osprey; blue heron, loons, and harbor seals; horseshoe crabs at the northern limit of their range; thousands of migrating geese, shore birds, and a notable population of ducks in the colder months. The bay still supports a variety of fisheries for worms, clams, mussels, scallops, crabs, and lobsters, all of which are dependent upon the natural productivity of their relatively undisturbed marine environment.
Our Goals
- To enhance the biological integrity, healthful functioning, capacity for self-renewal, and scenic beauty of Taunton Bay (including Egypt Bay, Hog Bay, Carrying Place Inlet, and the surrounding watershed).
- To study and take action on issues affecting Taunton Bay, which has been designated a class A (nationally significant) estuary.
- To promote understanding, appreciation, and protection of the bay by the general public and by government at local, regional, county, state, and federal levels.
- To focus public attention in Hancock, Franklin, Sullivan, and other towns in the watershed on actions that can be taken to improve the bay and its environs, or mitigate negative impacts on it.
- To serve as an educational resource for any person or group concerned with the welfare, health, or safety of the Taunton Bay community as a whole (including: humans, marine life, plant, bird, and animal life of every sort).
- To work with environmental and governmental bodies on matters affecting the health and well-being of the bay, its wildlife, and surrounding communities.