News
Rachel Hutchinson splashed through a foot of ice cold water in her waders to climb into a 17-foot skiff. Setting down a cooler full of seaweed and plastic bags of scissors, tape and data sensors, she pulled the black hat of her raincoat further down her forehead. A steady patter of rain made small ripples…
Throughout the course of the past year, Extension staff from Woods Hole Sea Grant/Cape Cod Cooperative Extension worked with the the state floodplain office at the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to create an updated model bylaw ensuring compliance with the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Most…
It’s no secret that we’ve got a lot of oysters on Cape Cod. With restaurants closing due to the COVID pandemic, oyster growers have lost their primary customers and many are left holding the bag on this year’s oyster harvest. In Massachusetts, more than 90 percent of oysters are eaten raw on the half-shell and…
Amanda Dwyer, a 2020 Knauss Fellow, might not be having the typical fellowship experience, due to COVID-19 outbreak and the need to shelter in place, but she’s not letting that stop her work as a Marine Debris Program Specialist, focusing on a new zero waste initiative for National Ocean Service (NOS) offices. The zero waste…
Friday, March 6, 2020 1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Redfield Auditorium Woods Hole, MA Researchers explain the work they’re doing to investigate pressing environmental and coastal issues. Showcasing recently completed and newly funded Sea Grant projects on shoreline resilience, sustainable fisheries, and sharks and microplastics in our waters, among others. This event is free and…
A fatal shark attack in Wellfleet on Cape Cod in 2018 has heightened the focus on protecting beachgoers from sharks. While the means of doing that is a subject of intense debate, many proposed actions involved new technologies and the need for increased awareness of sharks in the environment. Three new research projects funded by…
More than 100 people attended the second biennial Nantucket Coastal Conference at the Atheneum on June 26, 2019, to hear about the coastal issues that impact Nantucket and the approaches government, industry and non-profit organizations take in addressing them. Fifth in a series of conferences that started in 2013 and alternate between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket,…
New England isn’t known for its kelp forests the way California and other parts of the world are. But the truth is, below the surface of both inshore and offshore waters throughout New England, especially in areas that have rocky bottoms and a lot of wave action, there are “lush rolling meadows of kelp,” according…
What do warming oceans mean for Massachusetts’s nascent kelp farming industry? Seaweed farming is a huge global business valued at $6 billion, yet in the U.S. it is still getting its sea legs. Around New England there are perhaps 40 – 50 farmers of all sizes and experience levels working small ocean plots of a…
Expanding shellfish markets for alternative species Oysters on the half shell represent 94 percent of Massachusetts’s $28 million shellfish aquaculture industry. For an industry that has grown over 300 percent in value over the last ten years, some worry about the reliance on a monocrop: one bad year for oysters could be devastating to aquaculture…