Once chock-full of river herring and salmon, coastal river systems draining New England historically served as movement corridors for these and other highly migratory fish. Within the past four centuries, humans have methodically reshaped the region's rivers and their tributaries to enhance their capacity to transport raw materials, provide power, accommodate roads, and irrigate crops. These activities fragmented movement corridors, and reduced accessibility to and quality of critical spawning, rearing, and feeding grounds. As a result, the region's migratory fish community is, as a whole, imperiled and several species sit on the brink of extinction. Recovery of remnant populations and associated fisheries faces a unique challenge: motivating multiple human generations with no real recollection of or connection to these fish to invest significant resources into restoring their habitat. To better understand potential contemporary motivators, I surveyed over 300 Maine residents about the nature of their connections to waterbodies and fish within their home turf (i.e., the geographical area where they carried out their typical weekly routine). Due to frequent and customary interactions, this was the area expected to be most relevant to residents; for example, where they would be most likely to have established a sense of place, and be able to draw on social relationships to mobilize resources to restore or protect valued place attributes or waterbody features consistent with recovery of native migratory fish. The study findings suggest that today, waterbodies are almost universally valued as places to escape from day-to-day stressors. However, the native community of fish is not essential for this increasingly important need to be met. Sense of place literature suggests that motivation to act on behalf of a place (and its fish) hinges on high attachment, coupled with low satisfaction. Surveyed residents were generally satisfied with contemporary waterbodies. Efforts to engage the public in recovering the native fish community can be made more relevant and therefore motivating by linking recovery to valued attributes like clean water and the health benefits of quality nature escapes. These efforts also need to redefine a new baseline against which waterbody health is measured by prioritizing connectivity from headwaters to the sea, natural hydrologic regimes, and robust native fish and wildlife communities.
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