Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Dec. 8, included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
Environment
CLIMATE CRISIS
West End Salt Marsh Dieback Accelerates
After the purple crabs graze, millennia of peat washes away
PROVINCETOWN — On a Sunday morning in November, the low tide and lure of fresh foraged food drew many recreational shellfishermen to this season’s designated clamming area, the west side […]
PANDEMIC
Wastewater Testing Yields Messy Data
But it’s a still a valued tool for detecting Covid outbreaks
PROVINCETOWN — Testing wastewater for Covid was an unproved idea at the start of this pandemic. If it worked, it would be a way to cheaply test entire communities at […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Dec. 1, included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
TURTLE WATCH
Massive and Magnificent, a Sea Turtle Succumbs
Before being cold-stunned, the animal was ailing
The Big Cc, a 350-pound loggerhead sea turtle who washed ashore — upside-down and cold-stunned — near Truro’s Great Hollow Beach on Nov. 20, died four days later in the […]
WILDLIFE
Outer Cape Gets Season’s First Wave of Strandings
They’re mostly young turtles, but one loggerhead weighed in at 350 pounds
Thanksgiving week is a busy time for the sea turtle team at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and some 200 volunteers who work to rescue cold-stunned turtles on the Outer […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Nov. 17, included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
ENVIRONMENT
Scientists Pick Up Effort to Study Ponds
Seashore looks at role of warming; APCC urges county action
WELLFLEET — With a growing number of cyanobacteria blooms occurring in ponds across Cape Cod, researchers are expanding their efforts in hopes of better understanding toxic algal blooms and how […]
PUBLIC SPACE
Making Stellwagen Bank More Than ‘a Line on the Map’
Spaces for community use are part of the visitor center plan
PROVINCETOWN — One of the Outer Cape’s greatest assets is its proximity to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, a federally protected swath of ocean whose southernmost boundary is just three […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Nov. 10, included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
THE YEAR-ROUNDER
Broken Wing
The ways of nature can be difficult to witness
Three days in a row, in late September, I went out to Race Point Beach in search of a couple of rare gulls. Three days in a row I failed […]
WATERFRONT
Worries Stall Rock Harbor Building Plan
An alliance of neighbors puts pressure on town officials
EASTHAM — The Rock Harbor Improvements Committee, a subgroup of the Capital Projects Committee, has hit pause on a plan for a new harbormaster’s building while town staff try to […]
RECYCLING, PART 1
Plastics Prove Difficult to Recycle
Their costs in the environment and in waste streams is rising
Garbage. It’s a story ripe with complexity. The Independent is dumpster diving into the subject to better understand where the Outer Cape’s garbage goes. In this first installment, we look […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Nov. 3, included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
DIGGING DEEP
Seashore Prepares for Bound Brook Land Swap
Archaeologists play a role to protect natural and cultural resources
WELLFLEET — Driving northbound on Bound Brook Island Road in Wellfleet last week, travelers were greeted with a peculiar sight: a number of workers in reflective vests sifting through buckets […]
