This winter, there have been several unusual winter wildlife sightings on Nantucket. Most of these sightings are of creatures that ought to have migrated well south of us by now. A lone Piping Plover was spotted at Smith’s Point during the annual Christmas bird count on December 30th. Typically, these summer denizens of Nantucket’s beaches…
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Since the discovery of a population of Northern long-eared bats on Nantucket in 2015, the Foundation’s Science and Stewardship Department has been working hard to understand how these bats use habitat here. Because this species is at a high risk of extinction throughout much of the rest of the northeast, we feel it is critically…
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A few weeks ago, we reported on a male box turtle that was found on Nantucket. We wanted to give a little history on this turtle as well as an update on his current whereabouts. In June of 2009, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation received two reports of Eastern box turtles within 2 weeks of each other. The…
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Today was an exciting day for us here at the Nantucket Conservation Foundation! We were reunited with an old friend. In the summer of 2009, we received two separate reports of Eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina) – a male found in Surfside, and a female found at the Head of the Plains. At the time, these…
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In 2015, to the great surprise and delight of the conservation community, we were able to add another species to the Island’s list of mammals – we confirmed the presence the Northern long-eared bat on Nantucket! It’s not very often that you can add a new mammal to your list – but this tiny, nocturnal…
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*Note: this article was originally written in September 2017 and printed in the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror in the November 30, 2017 issue Fall is finally here. The air is cooling down and drying out, the tupelo trees are turning red and the goldenrods and blazing stars are blooming in all their yellow and purple…
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While island’s various conservation organizations each have a slightly different niche, one commonality is that they each have science-minded folks on staff with a great diversity of talents and an interest in conserving part of what makes Nantucket special – its native biodiversity. In 2002, in an effort to foster greater collaboration between scientists from…
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*Please note, this blog post was originally published in The Inquirer and Mirror on December 1st, 2016 in the article series called Island Ecology. The Foundation’s Science staff will be regularly contributing to our local newspaper and reprinting articles here the following week.* Earlier this summer in our Island Ecology column, we reported on the…
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The Nantucket Biodiversity Initiative (NBI) is a collaboration of scientists from local conservation organizations, government agencies, and educational institutions. One of our main goals is to support and facilitate biodiversity research on Nantucket, Tuckernuck and Muskeget Islands and surrounding waters and share results with the scientific community and the general public. Each year, the NBI…
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*Please note, this blog post was originally published in The Inquirer and Mirror on July 21th 2016 pg 6B in the article series Island Ecology. The Foundation’s Science staff will be regularly contributing to our local newspaper and reprinting articles here the following week.* As we all know, Nantucket is unique in so many ways…
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