Gulf of Maine Watershed
The watershed of the gulf encompasses an area of 69,115 miles² (179,008 km²), including all of Maine, 70% of New Hampshire, 56% of New Brunswick, 41% of Massachusetts, and 36% of Nova Scotia. The watershed also includes a small southern portion (less than 1%) of the Canadian province of Quebec. Significant rivers that drain into the Gulf include, from east to west, the Annapolis, Shubenacadie, Salmon, Petitcodiac, St. John, Magaguadavic, St. Croix, Penobscot, Kennebec, Saco, Piscataqua, Merrimack and Charles rivers; the St. John and Penobscot having the greatest discharge.
The cold waters of the gulf make it one of the most productive marine environments in the North Atlantic, and it furnishes habitat for many diverse species including most notably the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) and the American lobster (Homarus americanus), which grows to famously large sizes in the gulf. The waters of the Gulf of Maine system, particularly at the boundary with the Bay of Fundy are also home to the summering grounds for many different whale species, most notably the highly endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.
Read more about this topic: Gulf Of Maine
Famous quotes containing the words gulf of, gulf and/or maine:
“His father watched him across the gulf of years and pathos which always must divide a father from his son.”
—J.P. (John Phillips)
“And into the gulf between cantankerous reality and the male ideal of shaping your world, sail the innocent children. They are right there in front of us—wild, irresponsible symbols of everything else we can’t control.”
—Hugh O’Neill (20th century)
“Those Maine woods differ essentially from ours. There you are never reminded that the wilderness which you are threading is, after all, some villager’s familiar wood-lot, some widow’s thirds, from which her ancestors have sledded fuel for generations, minutely described in some old deed which is recorded, of which the owner has got a plan, too, and old bound-marks may be found every forty rods, if you will search.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)