College of the Atlantic graduate student Kate Pielmeier MPhil '19 counts and tracks harbor porpoi...College of the Atlantic graduate student Kate Pielmeier MPhil '19 counts and tracks harbor porpoises on the Schoodic Ferry, which runs between the COA pier in Bar Harbor and the town of Winter Harbor, across Frenchman Bay.

Kate Pielmeier is spending several hours a day, four days a week this summer staring out at the water from the Schoodic Ferry as it travels between Bar Harbor and Winter Harbor.

She’s looking for harbor porpoises.

Pielmeier, a graduate student at College of the Atlantic, is a research associate in the college’s Allied Whale program. She is conducting a survey of harbor porpoises in Frenchman Bay to provide baseline data for what she hopes will be the continued monitoring of the animals’ numbers, movements and behavior patterns in the future.

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