Earth Day 2017 (Saturday, April 22nd) is shaping up to be an interesting one, as people around the world come together to support both environmental awareness and science. While there isn’t an organized “March For Science” event planned for our island, Nantucket Eco Group is presenting the second annual Spring Fest event that day, with…
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*Please note, this blog post was originally published in The Inquirer and Mirror on January 19, 2017 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.* As the shortest day of the year has passed and we officially…
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*Please note, this blog post was originally published in The Inquirer and Mirror on August 11th, 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.* On the southeast end of Nantucket Island there is a large tract…
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February 2nd is World Wetlands Day, celebrated internationally every year since 1997 to commemorate the signing of the Convention on Wetlands in Ramsar, Iran. The Ramsar Convention represents a multi-national treaty which has facilitated work to survey, study, prioritize and conserve valuable wetland resources around the world and to promote the wise use of wetlands. World Wetlands…
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Unexplained die off of salt marsh plants, particularly along creek edges and the low tide line, has become an increasing issue along the New England coast since the 1990s. Along marsh creek banks and harbor edges, salt marsh plants (particularly salt marsh cordgrass or Spartina alterniflora) began disappearing, leaving behind large swaths of exposed soil, filled…
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In 2009, Andrew Mckenna-Foster, Director of Natural Science at the Maria Mitchell Association, found the very first record of a four-toed salamander for Nantucket in the vicinity of Sesachacha Pond! Andrew was working on another project at the time and incidentally found the four-toed salamander underneath a plywood board meant to attract snakes. Up to…
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During the Nantucket Biodiversity Initiative Conference on Nov 1-3rd, 2013, a large group of conference attendees joined me to visit some of the largest, and likely some of the oldest, trees at Squam Swamp. These exemplary trees may provide clues to Nantucket’s land use history, teaching us more about how the forest has grown and…
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With the dwindling daylight and cooling fall temperatures, the spotted turtles of Medouie Creek have been preparing for hibernation for some time now. While we humans have enjoyed a beautiful warm and dry fall, the turtles are in need of some real rain soon! Their metabolisms have slowed and they’ve moved into dense shrubby swamps…
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You might never guess that the tail end of winter would be a great time to explore the forests of Nantucket, but it is! On February 21st, a group of warmly dressed visitors met in the Squam Swamp Trailhead Parking Lot on Wauwinet Road. The objective: to explore the forest of Squam Swamp in winter. Kelly Omand,…
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The Medouie Creek Wetland is a large wetland along the north side of Polpis Harbor on Nantucket Island. This wetland was historically one large salt water marsh, directly connected to the harbor, getting daily tides washing over it. Sometime in the 1930s, a dike was created to build a road, allowing people access to the…
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