Rangers at Acadia National Park cited 5 people this spring for hiking in Acadia on a closed trail, as the park steps up efforts to protect peregrine falcons following decade-low numbers of chicks that flew from nests the past two years in the park.

The crack down comes amid new concerns about protecting the falcons from people hiking in Acadia. One possible red flag: Acadia was home to the only peregrine falcon nest that failed last year among 26 nests in Maine, according to the Maine Peregrine Falcon Program Report for 2024.

The nest that failed last year was at Valley Cove in Acadia. Also, only three chicks fledged in 2024 in the park and four in 2023, down from an average of about seven a year, according to park statistics and park press releases.

A lot of factors, including weather, predators like the great horned owl, behaviors of individual birds and annoyance by people, can affect the very fragile process of breeding by peregrine falcons, officials said.

Rangers confronted hikers on closed Precipice Trail

“Many of these variables are out of our control,” Amanda Pollock, public affairs officer for Acadia National Park, told us in an email. “However, we do have some control over whether or not the falcons are impacted by human disturbance.”

The five citations for violating trail closures this spring follow the highly-publicized charges in 2024 of three young people from southern Maine who were hiking in Acadia on the Precipice Trail in July while it was closed.

The three were photographed while climbing the Precipice and identified after an investigation. The five individuals cited this spring were contacted in the field by rangers, according to Pollock.

To protect the birds, the park annually closes hiking trails like the Precipice on the east face of Champlain Mountain and on the cliffs of Valley Cove and Penobscot Mountain from roughly March to mid-August. For the first time, the park, citing the behavior of falcons, closed the Penobscot East Trail to hiking in Acadia.

“Since the closures went into effect, Acadia National Park rangers have issued five citations to hikers who violated our trail closures…specifically at the Precipice Trail,” Pollock added. “For violating the trail closure, individuals can be charged with up to 6 months in prison or a $5,000 fine…. Peregrine falcons are incredibly sensitive to human disturbance. If disturbed, the adult falcons will abandon their nests, putting their young at risk of predation, hypothermia and starvation.”

More than 180 peregrine chicks have fledged at Acadia

Peregrine falcons became nearly extinct in the mid-1960s but made an amazing comeback from pesticide pollution and other factors, because of work at Acadia and elsewhere in the US. The falcons were reintroduced into the Maine national park in 1984 and have been returning on their own to nest successfully from 1991 to the present.

Peregrine falcons were removed from the federal Endangered Species list in 1999, but breeding peregrine falcons remain on Maine’s endangered species list.

A total of 181 peregrine falcon chicks have fledged from Acadia National Park, according to park statistics. Before the small numbers in 2024 and 2023, eight fledged in 2022; six in 2020 and 2021; nine in 2019; eight in 2018; five in 2017; 11 in 2016 and seven in 2015 and 2014, according to park officials.

Nest failures are not unusual, but Acadia officials have been concerned that the park’s most productive nest, located on the Precipice on the east side of Champlain Mountain, has failed four times since 2011. Before 2011, the Precipice nest failed only once – in 2007 – in the 20 years prior.

Hemlock Path to be closed for building new boardwalk

The National Park Service plans to close Hemlock Path between Great Meadow Loop and the Jesup Path to accommodate a major rehabilitation on the trail featuring a new 500-foot-long boardwalk through a much-photographed birch grove.

The section of Hemlock Path in Acadia National Park is expected to be closed until early fall, an NPS official told us. The closure will start May 12, just before the peak season for hiking in Acadia, according to the park’s web site.

The work, as presented last year on May 15 during a Friends of Acadia and park Zoom event, includes a new boardwalk through a romantic birch grove.

The work was scheduled to start in 2024 but was postponed. The new boardwalk is aimed at expanding hiking in Acadia for the physically disabled, a longtime goal of the park.

To improve water flow through the Great Meadow Wetland and to make the trail more accessible for visitors with wheelchairs or baby strollers, 500 feet of boardwalk is set to be added and another 500 feet of trail is planned to be upgraded. The trail work is part of the restoration of the 116-acre Great Meadow, the park’s largest freshwater wetland.

A few birch trees to be cut from Hemlock Path

Christian Barter, a supervisor with the Acadia Trail Crew, described the work during the Zoom event and said that “very, very few” of the birch trees will be removed to allow for the boardwalk. “Certainly, my hope is that it wouldn’t even be noticeable. We will have to take a few trees,” he added, noting that if you look closely, you can see some trees currently lean over the trail.

The new boardwalk will go with a current 0.25-mile-long boardwalk on the southern end of Jesup Path for hiking in Acadia.

Pollock, public affairs officer at Acadia National Park, told us in an email on April 30: “We expect that section of Hemlock Path to be closed until early fall.”

While the northern section of Hemlock Path between Great Meadow Loop and Jesup Path is closed, people will still be able to hike a loop from Sieur de Monts via Jesup and the southern section of Hemlock Path.