Participants, instructors and organizers of the Fishing Partnership Safety & Drill Trainings hosted by CT Sea Grant gather around a life raft at the end of the first of the two-day workshop Oct 27 & 28. At center in the life raft is Nancy Balcom, CTSG associate director.Connecticut College Arboretum Director Maggie Redfern, right, tells about 20 people on a CT Sea Grant-sponsored hike of Mamacoke Island Oct. 19 about how Indigenous people once used the area for fishing and other activities The hike was part of the Thames River Park's "Walk in the Park" series.Hannah King of New England Science and Sailing, left, follows instructions from Zach Gordon, CTSG assistant extension educator, center, for preparing kelp sorus tissue to release spores as part of a demonstration for teachers in the CTSG mobile seaweed lab.Participants in a Long Island Sound Mentor Teacher workshop at Hammonasset on Sept. 16 seine for minnows, jellyfish and other marine creatures.Mike Morazzini, teacher at Jonathan Law High School in Milford, holds up a jar of polluted water filtered through cotton, burlap and other materials during a stormwater exercise at the Long Island Sound Mentor Teacher workshop on marine pollution at Bluff Point State Park on Sept. 12.CTSG-supported photographer and videographer Tomas Koeck, left, talks to visitors at the Alexey von Schlippe Art Gallery during the opening of his exhibit of nature photos. His film "Flyway of Life" will be shown at UConn Avery Point on Oct. 1.Volunteers pried dozens of pounds of trash trapped in the rocks on the shoreline along Long Wharf Drive in New Haven during the 2025 #DontTrashLISound kickoff cleanup.Hannah Roby, a doctoral student at UConn Avery Point, throws an eel back in the water after seining in Mumford Cove in Groton for a CTSG-funded research project on flounder.Participants ply canoes and kayaks during in the paddle and nature exploration event at Bluff Point State Park on June 28 hosted by the CT NERR and CT Sea Grant.Fran Pijar of the Clean Up Sound and Harbors nonprofit shows Yaprak Onat of CIRCA an area in Stonington prone to flooding during a June 25 workshop for the pilot project launching the MyCoast app in Connecticut to track storm and tidal flooding. CT Sea Grant, the CT NERR and CIRCA are partnering in the project.Michael Julian, owner of Park City Seafood, transfers juvenile soft-shell clams from his upweller in the Pequonnock River in Bridgeport to CTSG Senior Extension Educator Tessa Getchis so she can measure them before he plants them in one of his leased areas farther east along the shoreline.EPA, CT and NY officials and other others flank the resolution they signed on June 20 supporting the new Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for Long Island Sound. CT Sea Grant is part of the Long Island Sound Partnership that created the plan.Devon Guerette of East Lyme, center, helps his sons Oliver, 2, and Bently, 4, make cotton ball piping plover chicks during the Family Fun day at Bluff Point State Park in Groton on June 8. More than 70 people attended the event, hosted by the CT NERR, CT Sea Grant and the Town of Groton.CTSG's SHUCKS aquaculture training program interns Brendon Goulette, left, and Danielle Calini met May 15 with Mike Bohan of the Guilford Shellfish Commission, which is helping fund the internship.Visitors to the Earth Day festival at the Groton Public Library on April 26 make bug houses at the CT Sea Grant table. The event featured more than 50 displays.CTSG joined members of New London Rotary and New London Trees in an Arbor Day tree-planting event at the Lighthouse Inn on April 25.CTSG assistant extension educators Mike Gilman, left, and Zach Gordon, center, talk with UConn Avery Point student Cameron Salas about shell recycling and different types of shellfish in Long Island Sound at the EcoHusky Earth Day fair April 21 in the Avery Point library.Students at the Drop-In Learning Center in New London show the sea creature puppets they made with CTSG's Maggie Cozens and Judy Benson on April 15.Students in the 2025 Foundations of Shellfish Farming course taught by Michael Gilman, far right, CT Sea Grant assistant extension educator, met for their last of 12 classes on April 1.Maggie Favretti of the Alliance for the Mystic River Watershed, left, Kelly Kerrigan of the town of Stratford, center, and Jessica Canizares of The Nature Conservancy, answer questions about their grant funding successes during a Sustainable & Resilient Communities Program funding workshop in New Haven on March 31 attended by about 45 people.Students in the "Life Between the Tides" activity examine a hermit crab model during the Long Island Sound Schools Network Symposium at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk on March. 14.James Flynn, left, and Jake Dittes dissect an oyster in the CTSG "Foundations of Shellfish Farming" class.Scientists will be studying salt marshes, declining flounder species, water quality and many other topics with the largest investment in Long Island Sound research.Sustainable & Resilient Communities team from NY and CT gathers in Rye, NY, with NY & CT Sea Grant and EPA officials to announce awards to 15 LIS communities and new round of resilience funding.Municipal officials and land trust representatives from CT and NY learn about a rain garden project in Hamden on Dec. 5 as part of the 2024 Annual Sustainable and Resilient Communities Workshop.Clayton McGoldrick, CTSG lab technician, holds a beaker of kelp sorus tissue that is releasing spores in the mobile seaweed lab at the UConn Avery Point campus.High School in the Community students, from left, Eden Torres, Isaiah Sosa and Dominic Moore met with Judy Benson, Wrack Lines editor, to receive copies of the magazine where their essays about nature and climate change appear.Researchers collect water samples at the Bride Brook marsh at Rocky Neck State Park as part of a CTSG-funded project.Teachers examine marine life through microscopes during the Long Island Sound Mentor Teacher workshop at Hammonasset Beach State Park on Sept. 14.Kayakers and rowers paddle from the shores of UConn Avery Point during the Messing About in Boats event for students, faculty and staff Sept. 13 sponsored by the CT NERR, CT Sea Grant, the John Gardner Chapter of the Traditional Small Craft Association and the campus.Researchers lower a probe into Beebe Cove in Groton at sunrise on Aug. 13 as part of a CTSG-funded project studying whether eelgrass and oysters can live symbiotically.UConn Professor Beth Lawrence, right, talks to a member of her research team while other team members collect gas samples and record data for a CTSG-funded project at Great Meadows Marsh in Stratford on Aug. 12Yale Professor Gaboury Benoit removes trash collected at a boom he placed on the Mill River in New Haven as part of CTSG-funded research into the plastic litter cycle.Dancers perform at the Sliver by the River celebration in Bridgeport in May, which included participation by CT Sea Grant Sustainable & Resilient Communities Extension Educator Deb Abibou.Waterford High School student Caydin Martinez, left, shows two of the approximately 370 Waterford elementary school students how to measure the depth of marsh sediment during Marine Science Day at Waterford Town Beach on June 3.Fisherman John Genther, center, received a Meritorious Service Award from the Coast Guard for saving a man's life less than two weeks after taking first aid training hosted by CTSG.Michael Thomas of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe and Alissa Dragan, supervising environmental analyst at the state Department of Agriculture Bureau of Aquaculture, discuss ways to improve access to shellfishing grounds for his and other tribes in Connecticut after his talk at the Annual Gathering of Shellfish Commissions on Feb. 3.Volunteer Bobbi Brown, left, shows Anthony Leggitt, 5, how to cast a fishing rod during the CT Sea Grant-Groundwork Bridgeport "Let's Go Fishing" event Aug. 19 on Knowlton Park on the Pequonnock River.

Connecticut Sea Grant Arts Support Awards Program

October 2, 2025

Connecticut Sea Grant, through its Arts Support Awards Program, will award up to $1000 to an artist or group of artists. The winning submission will be selected on the basis of aesthetic quality, relevance to coastal and marine environments and Connecticut Sea Grant themes, as well as its potential impact on the wider public and new audiences.

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Associate Director Nancy Balcom receives national award

September 26, 2025

Connecticut Sea Grant Associate Director Nancy Balcom received the William Q. Wick Visionary Career Leadership Award from the Sea Grant Extension Assembly, given “in recognition of outstanding career achievement, leadership, vision and contribution to Sea Grant Extension through administration.”

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UConn Marine Sciences students Hanna Roby, left, Vicky You, center and Kaitlyn Tripp look for juvenile flounder in a seine net pulled through Mumford Cove in Groton in August.

CT, NY Sea Grant funded flounder research makes news

September 4, 2025

Two CT media outlets featured a current research project titled “Bottoming Out? Testing Hypothesis on Why Long Island Sound Flatfishes Are Disappearing,” funded as part of the 2025-2027 collaborative between the CT and NY Sea Grant programs and the EPA’s Long Island Sound Partnership.

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Alexa Madria of Brooklyn, New York, was one of five book club members who volunteered at the cleanup.

406 pounds of trash uplifted along with volunteers’ spirits

August 18, 2025

For Amanda Kostalis of Wallingford, spending a Saturday morning extracting plastic cups, food wrappers and other garbage from the rocks along the New Haven shoreline is a kind of public service therapy. “I try to volunteer as much as I can,” she said. “It helps to combat those feelings of hopelessness.”

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Beachgoers enjoy Eastern Point Beach in Groton on Long Island Sound on a summer day.

Survey shows most view LIS positively, but lack awareness

August 12, 2025

A survey of more than 3,700 CT and NY residents shows the majority view Long Island Sound as a major asset to the region’s quality of life and economy. The survey by CT Sea Grant on behalf of the Long Island Sound Partnership was conducted in 2024, 18 years after the first public perceptions survey.

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Cover of Spring-Summer 2025 issue of Wrack Lines magazine showing diver with a ribbon of sugar kelp.