News
This October, four ocean drifters made by O-STEAM fellows were launched into Cape Cod Bay. The GPS transmitters on the drifters are tracking their paths in and around the Bay. As a part of this summer’s O-STEAM fellowship program, Margaret Gregory, a fifth year PhD candidate in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, spent a day with…
“In my opinion, the beach is a living breathing thing. It changes every day, with every wave. When the wind blows, the beach changes.” That’s what WHOI Sea Grant coastal processes specialist Bryan McCormack told the more than 185 people who filled the auditorium for the 2025 State of Wellfleet Harbor Conference on November 1.…
WHOI Sea Grant recently caught up with 2025 Knauss Fellow Lina Taenzer for a short interview. Dive into the Q&A to hear about her life in D.C. and her experiences at NOAA’s Global Ocean Monitoring and Observation office.
For WHOI Sea Grant/Cape Cod Cooperative Extension’s marine team, it started with a text message back in the spring of 2023: “Any idea what this strange clam is?” And from there a story has begun to unfold. Spotted by commercial harvesters in Chatham and Wellfleet, Manila Clams (Ruditapes philippinarum) had not been documented in New…
In October, WHOI Sea Grant bid farewell to our research coordinator Jennie Rheuban. Jennie joined Sea Grant in 2019 as the program’s first research coordinator, where she helped shape the program’s research agenda, administered our biennial call for proposals, and worked closely with scientists to bring their work to those that will benefit from it.…
We’ve had an exciting few weeks tracking our drifters! As of November 12 two drifters – yellow “Sofia” and teal “Sophia” – have reached shore! Keep reading to find out where they came ashore and who found them. The other two – purple “Maddie” and red “Athvika” – are still drifting but have exited Cape…
We released our first set of four drifters into Cape Cod Bay on Friday (10/24/2025)! We had planned to deploy them a few days earlier, but weather conditions prevented us from going out. We finally had a window on Friday – which, unfortunately, was a day I was unable to join. So, thank you to…
As a part of this summer’s O-STEAM program, I was able to spend a day with the fellows talking about how drifters can be used to study the transport of water within Cape Cod Bay. Drifters have been used by oceanographers to track ocean currents for more than four decades. They’re relatively inexpensive, versatile, and…
Resource managers have taken a range of conservation measures to improve the southern New England’s winter flounder population, including reduced catch limits and restrictions on dredging in their spawning habitat. Despite these steps, winter flounder stocks remain low. Scientists from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (MA DMF) want to know why. Eelgrass habitats serve…
In 2010, owners of a property on Chequessett Neck Road in Wellfleet were permitted to remove their home and replace it with a 5800 square foot home in the grand Cape Cod style: five bedrooms, five bathrooms, two stone chimneys, a turreted sunroom, and an expansive porch. Sitting on a bluff 20-feet above the beach…