This is the first in a series of articles on the Cape Cod National Seashore’s science program. It explores why science matters at the Seashore and why it’s at risk.
Center for Coastal Studies
ENVIRONMENT
Earth Day Marks 50th Anniversary Despite Crisis
Environmentalists maintain social distance while cleaning up
Celebrating the 50th Earth Day last week required environmental organizations across the Outer Cape to get creative.
Both the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown and the Eastham Conservation Foundation organized cleanups, but this year without working in large groups.
Laura Ludwig, coordinator of the center’s Marine Debris and Plastics Program, organized an Earth Day cleanup in which households individually collected litter. In total, 70 people participated, with about one third of volunteers sending in data cards tallying the trash, she said.
Since it was organized online, locales were near and far. Volunteers collected trash not only on Cape Cod beaches, but also in western Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and West Virginia. Ludwig was glad to reach people who hadn’t worked with the center before.
Despite the cold weather, “The feedback was fantastic,” Ludwig said. “People were so grateful to feel they weren’t doing it by themselves — that there was a bigger collective behind it.”
At the Eastham Conservation Foundation’s second annual cleanup at Bee’s River Marsh, volunteers picked up 300 pounds of trash. Seven households — a total of 15 people — worked on sections of the marsh over the course of several days while maintaining social distancing.
Foundation director Bill Allan told the Independent that volunteers were glad to participate. “People were gratified by getting out and doing something productive, when there’s not many productive things you can do these days,” he said.
Allan said volunteers ended up with less rubbish than the 1.5 tons collected last year, but that’s a step forward, since after the big effort last year, there was less trash to be found.
But with fewer people, larger items, such as tires, were left behind. “We need to understand what’s coming in and get to the source,” Allan said. “There are 50 car tires along the edge of the marsh. How did they get there? They floated in from fishing boats, which use them for bumpers.”
Ludwig agreed and emphasized the importance of counting the trash and tallying the data. “That way, you can draw attention to who the culprits are,” she said. Recording what garbage ends up in the environment is the first step toward stopping it from entering it in the first place.
Construction materials, Ludwig said, make up much of the debris found at the ocean. “It’s probably the worst offender,” she said.
Ludwig thinks construction materials blow out of uncovered dumpsters. “It’s a hard thing to manage, and harder to enforce,” she said. “But by having data, you can work with town managers and builders.”
Allan pointed out that what ends up in Bee’s River Marsh is just a fraction of the trash dumped in the ocean. “A lot of what we find is just little pieces of plastic,” he said. “Where did the rest go? It breaks down into microplastics, which get incorporated into the plants and environment, and ultimately into us.”
Harriet Korim of Wellfleet, a member of the climate-action group Cape Cool, was disappointed that live climate strikes on Earth Day were canceled due to the coronavirus. The Wellfleet Conservation Trust’s celebration of the 50th Earth Day at Preservation Hall was also canceled. Groups like Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion, which helped to organize the global strike, held online rallies instead.
In lieu of a strike, Korim helped launch another project to get Outer Cape residents curious about their surroundings: a census of trees. It will continue for one year and encourage adults and children to observe and identify trees. “The real motivation is to learn how crucial trees are, and how much we don’t understand,” Korim said.
On its website, Cape Cool asks students to pay attention to one bud on a tree by tying a piece of string around its base and drawing it every day. Participants can then send in their artwork, which will be posted online.
ENVIRONMENT
Science Research Is Cut to the Essentials
Outer Cape naturalists’ fieldwork is postponed, leaving holes in data sets
With the ongoing pandemic, scientific research has been interrupted across Cape Cod.
Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary has placed five staff members on partial furlough due to funding freezes, according to director Melissa Lowe. Visiting researchers have postponed or canceled fieldwork, and the sanctuary has suspended all volunteer efforts. With fewer staff and volunteers, data collection has been disrupted.
our picks for the week of April 16 through April 22
Indie’s Choice
Outer Cape Bulletin
A Free Lunch in Truro
The Truro Community Kitchen is serving hands-free takeout meals to those in the community most in need, Sundays from noon to 2 p.m. curbside at the Box Lunch at 300 Route 6. Deliveries are available, and you may remain anonymous. For details, email [email protected].
National Treasure
Britain’s National Theatre, which has screened live in HD performances stateside for a price, is offering free streams of recent productions on its YouTube channel during the coronavirus crisis. This week’s pick: from Thursday, April 16, at 7 p.m. through April 23, you can watch a stage version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure story Treasure Island, a treat for the whole family.
I Hear a Symphony
Through May 20, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s “Concert for Our City,” shot live at Symphony Hall on Feb. 16, is free on video at bso.org. Thomas Wilkins conducts “the beautiful sounds of friendship,” including a polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin; folk songs composed and sung by Huang Ruo; the Dvorak Cello Concerto, with cellist Sterling Elliott; and Brahms’s Symphony No. 1.
TV or Not to TV
Channel 99, Provincetown Community Television (PTV) will be sharing videos created by viewers that feature painting lessons to poetry readings, cooking recipes or talent shows. For more information on submissions, email [email protected].
Earth Day Clean-up
Wednesday, April 22, is Earth Day, and in its honor, the Center for Coastal Studies is organizing a safe-distance clean-up and virtual celebration. Starting at 9 a.m., the center suggests you “take a bag, don some gloves, and clean your own beach, street, park, roadside, playground, sidewalk, riverbank, forest, or dune.” Take pics, and the center will post them on its Facebook page, which is where you should go for details and updates.
Virtual Martial Arts
The Wellfleet Recreation Dept. and Capoeira Basouro Cape Cod are presenting a free live video capoeira class with André Lima on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. on Google Hangouts. All levels are welcome. To watch, go 10 minutes early to wellfleet-ma.gov/recreation, and on the menu at left, click on “Live Capoeira Class,” and use the link provided.
How Much Is That Resika in the Window?
The Berta Walker Gallery at 208 Bradford St. in Provincetown is inviting onlookers keeping a safe distance outside to sample “Walker’s Windows,” a rotating exhibit of work by the gallery’s artists — many of them living masters of the Provincetown art colony, such as Salvatore Del Deo and Varujan Boghosian, Paul Resika and Robert Henry — so as to “nurture your spirits.”
Do Not Read Gentle
Ptown Pizza Readings has gone virtual via Zoom, and refreshments are BYOP (i.e., Bring Your Own Pizza). Everyone still reads some lines and has a slice or two while remaining safely apart. This Sunday, April 19, from 1 to 4 p.m., participants will read Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. To register, do a Facebook search for “Virtual Reading: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas,” and reserve yourself a spot.
our picks for the week of April 9 through April 15
Indie’s Choice
Wagner and Mozart
The Metropolitan Opera continues its daily streaming of live performances from the past through April 19. Each day, from 7:30 p.m. till 6:30 p.m. the next day, a different opera will become available for free. From Thursday, April 9, to Friday, April 10, for example, a 2013 production of Wagner’s Parsifal is free, as is a 2018 performance of Mozart’s Così fan tutte from Sunday, April 12, to Monday, April 13. The easiest way to access the free operas is to search for “Nightly Met Opera Streams,” which is a page on the Met’s website: scroll down to the schedule and click on the opera of the day.
Napi’s Collection
The Provincetown Art Association and Museum is closed to the public through May, but its newest exhibit, “Director’s Choice: In Memoriam: Napi Van Dereck,” curated by PAAM CEO Christine McCarthy, is on view virtually. It’s a well-presented, glorious selection of works from the collection of Helen and Napi Van Dereck, all of it historic Provincetown art, which are being shown in honor of Napi’s recent passing. To access the exhibit, go to paam.org under “Exhibitions.” You can manually scan through the exhibit or download the Lingar app.
There Will Be a Quiz
For parents with kids who are curious about science, the Center for Coastal Studies is offering a generous selection of quizzes (on the ocean), games (matching hatchlings), experiments (on coastal erosion), and online presentations (babysitting baby squid) on its website, coastalstudies.org. To find “Online Activities for Kids,” click on “Connect and Learn” at the top of the home page.
P’town Call-in Q&A
Local government can be elusive during the current shutdown, but the Town of Provincetown has scheduled a “Call-in Question and Answer Session” on Wednesday, April 15, from 7 to 8 p.m. For updates, go to the town’s Facebook page and click on “Events.”
More Art Online
Provincetown artist Derek Macara and his friend Charles Flint have set up a thoughtfully interactive art show on view through May 2 called “Shelter: A Virtual Exhibit of Provincetown Artists.” It’s easy to navigate and the art can be observed up close. To get to the exhibit, go to kunstmatrix.com and do a search up top for “Derek Macara.”
Happy Drive-by Birthday
Here’s a message from the Town of Truro’s Recreation & Beach Dept.: “We can’t imagine trying to celebrate your special day in isolation. Which is why the Town of Truro would like to offer to have our Birthday Caravan drive past your Truro address to wish them a happy birthday. This program is open to Truro residents or children attending Truro Central School.” To sign up, go to truroma.myrec.com, click on the “Programs” icon, then “Birthday Caravan.”
Virtual Music Lessons
The Wellfleet Public Library’s website, wellfleetlibrary.org, is being reworked, but if you scroll down the home page, you’ll find a heading for “Artist Works” in the bottom left. Click on it, and you’ll be linked to a video gateway for self-paced music lessons by respected artists, from Classical Mandolin to Jazz Piano, Hip-hop Scratching to Bluegrass Vocals.
Youth Film Fest Deadline
Local filmmakers may find social distancing to be a severe obstacle, but obstacles are just a springboard to creativity (in theory, at least). Why that’s important: the deadline for entries for the Wellfleet Preservation Hall Youth Film Festival is April 30. Filmmaker applications are available online at wellfleetpreservationhall.org.
ENVIRONMENT
Math Looks Bad for Right Whales
With females dying at higher rates and fewer births, hope for species dims
PROVINCETOWN — Dragon, a female right whale who gave birth to a calf as recently as 2016, was spotted two weeks ago entangled in rope 50 miles south of Nantucket. She was malnourished and underweight, likely because the entanglement was preventing her from feeding.
This might be the last we see of Dragon. Because she has lost so much blubber, she will likely sink, rather than float, when she dies. That’s a problem for scientists, because whale cadavers can help them determine the cause of death, update mortality statistics, and identify the source of the entangling gear.
Center for Coastal Studies scientist Stormy Mayo said that Dragon’s plight is part of a larger trend: female right whales are dying at a higher rate than males. With fewer females to produce babies, the chances of a future for the species are reduced.
“The numbers of calves over the past five years has been very low, and the mortalities have been very high,” Mayo said. Although the number of calves this year — 10 were spotted off Florida last month — is “wonderfully higher than the past four years, it’s not enough.”
Richard Pace, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, estimates that 133 right whales died between 2010 and 2017, or about 19 animals each year. But only 39 carcasses were found, as the remaining 94 sank before being spotted. During the same time period, 115 calves, or about 16 per year, were born, resulting in a higher mortality than birth rate.
Because only 50 percent of calves reach adulthood, Pace estimates that at least 30 births would be needed this year to compensate for deaths.
Changing Patterns
Scientists understand right whale deaths better than they do reproduction. “There are lots of gaps,” said Mayo. “The animals are roaming bodies of water, areas out in the ocean that we just don’t know about.”
What is known is that female whales typically migrate to warmer waters in Florida and Georgia to give birth. Their calves need three weeks to grow enough blubber to survive the colder northern waters. Afterwards, the pair begins the journey to Cape Cod and as far north as Nova Scotia, where plentiful food can be found in spring and summer.
It is this reproductive migration that puts female right whales at greater risk than males. As they travel from Canada to Florida and back, the chances they’ll come into the path of fishing boats and gear are higher.
One of the calves born this year has already suffered a major injury from being hit by a boat. Mayo is concerned that the calf cannot form a seal to nurse milk from its mother, and its recovery, like Dragon’s, is unlikely.
Cape Cod Bay is a seasonal home for right whales. Mayo estimates that at least 278 animals, or 65 percent of the North Atlantic population, were in the bay last spring, and dozens have already returned this season. They’re easily spotted from Herring Cove and Race Point.
But these patterns are changing.
Reproduction has dropped in recent years. Healthy female right whales should give birth every three years, but the current average is every six or seven years, Pace said. Scientists don’t know why that is so, but say it is likely due to nutritional and other stresses. The result, though, is clear: fewer births.
Bigger mammals, like right whales or elephants, tend to reproduce less frequently than smaller mammals because of their longer life spans, Pace said. Right whales typically lived well over 60 years, but these days their life expectancy is closer to 40 years with increased mortality from boat strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. With female right whales dying at a rate of 5 percent per year, Pace said, they are not living long enough to replace themselves.
Complicating scientists’ abilities to understand whale behavior, the geographic distribution of right whales is changing with the climate crisis.
For example, right whales typically eat copepods, tiny crustaceans swimming in the ocean. In the past, these could be found near Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Maine, carried in by ocean currents. Those currents have slowed because of warming, however, and right whales are moving elsewhere to find food. Recently, whales have been spotted south of Nantucket and near George’s Bank instead of farther north.
Arts Briefs and Listings
Arts Briefs for March 12 through March 18
Cape Cod Natural History Conference at 4Cs
Organized by the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, the 25th annual Cape Cod Natural History Conference will take place on Saturday, March 14, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Tilden Arts Center at Cape Cod Community College, 2240 Iyannough Road in Barnstable.
The conference features presentations from environmental organizations across Cape Cod (including three talks by scientists and naturalists from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown) on a variety of natural history topics, including white sharks, sea turtle rehab, salt marshes, coyotes eating seals, butterflies, and barn owls.
Due to public health concerns, this conference has been cancelled. All Mass Audubon offices and sites are closed through the end of March. For more information, visit massaudubon.org.
Catch the New Met Dutchman at WHAT
The Metropolitan Opera has a new production of Richard Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer (“The Flying Dutchman”), directed by François Girard, with Evgeny Nikitin as the mysterious seafarer, and you don’t have to go to Lincoln Center to see it. It will be live in HD on the big screen at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater on Saturday, March 14, at 12:55 p.m. at 2357 Route 6.
This performance has been cancelled by the Metropolitan Opera. For information about refunds, visit what.org, or call (508) 349-9428.
A Feminist Fantasia at Provincetown Theater
Playwright L M Feldman, a rising talent on the national theater scene, will preview her new play, Amanuensis, or The Miltons, at a staged reading on Tuesday, March 17, at 7 p.m. at the Provincetown Theater at 238 Bradford St. This is the third of four Winter Play Dates at the theater. Admission is free and open to the public.
John Dennis Anderson, Colin Delaney, Vanessa Rose, and Anne Stott will perform in a “gleeful, fantastical family saga of three sisters in search of their place in history,” according to the theater’s announcement, and Feldman will be around for a talkback after the reading.
Due to public health concerns, the Winter Play Dates series has been cancelled. Visit provincetowntheater.org for more information.
Classic Crime Unfolds in Provincetown
Filmmaker Jean Renoir, son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste, hit his artistic peak in the 1930s, directing such all-time classics as Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game. Along the way he and screenwriter Jacques Prévert came up with Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, an utterly charming caper about a couple on the lam.
The film will screen at the Provincetown Film Art Series on Wednesday, March 18, at the Waters Edge Cinema at 237 Commercial St., 2nd floor of Whaler’s Wharf in Provincetown. It will be introduced by series curator Howard Karren, who will lead a discussion afterward. Admission is $12-$8 or series pass.
METAPHYSICS
The Short-Lived Loves of Local Squid
While males get distracted, females sneak in multiple mates
Squid appeared maybe 700 million years ago. They predate everything we think of as ancient — sharks, fish, and even trees. But they don’t predate sex. That invention happened about 1.2 billion years ago. Which, along with some savvy marketing, brings us to Valentine’s Day as we know it.
How do squid celebrate their love?
During spring and summer, females gather in large spawning sites. Since females will mate many times, males compete for their attention. It is unknown whether the fact that squid have three hearts contributes to their passionate behavior. But when they have the opportunity, males rely on a specialized part of an arm — the hectocotylus — to deliver their sperm to the females. Some species go so far as to wrench off the arm and present it to the females, but our local squid play it cooler than that.
The sperm await in the female’s mantle until she ovulates. The eggs are fertilized as they pass by well-placed sperm.
The male squid does not have to be nearby at that particular moment, though he usually is, guarding his sweetheart as males do in the pas de deux of squid.
Do you remember that guy in high school who would post up at the dance and wait quietly for his shot at the girl of his dreams while she danced with some other meathead? He’d hope for them to encounter a temporary setback in their amore, and then he’d be there to console her, like the champ he was.
Squid have that guy, too. Scientists call him the “sneaker” male.
When a large male is distracted by any of a number of annoyances, including other large males that may be thinking of sharing their sperm with the female, the smaller, quicker squid may sneak right past him. Genetic tests show this strategy to be effective, yielding approximately 20 percent of squid offspring, with the balance going to the large male.
The females secrete a substance that coats the fertilized eggs. It takes on some seawater and expands in volume, protecting the eggs and also helping them get attached to a rock or the ocean floor.
Wellfleet shellfisherman Richard Blakely tells the story of arriving at his oyster grant a few summers back to find his rebar oyster cages crushed beyond repair under the weight of a giant mass of squid eggs. Richard’s cages were strong enough to support his weight when he walked on them. “Musta been 300 pounds of squid eggs,” he said.
Squid lay eggs all around our coast in the summer. Owen Nichols of the Center for Coastal Studies tells me that Pleasant Bay is a favorite squid trysting spot. Last summer, Owen and his team found many rotten squid eggs in the bay. He suspects this was due to low oxygen levels in the water from fertilizer runoff. It caused an algae bloom, an emerging problem in these parts. Still, even amidst these die-offs, many survived, as evidenced by the juveniles he found to study and as summer’s catch in Nantucket Sound showed.
Squid reproduce in large numbers and a typical brood can have hundreds of thousands of eggs. Not all of them make it. Squid love stories are brief. Though some species may live longer, the squid that visit our shores survive for only about a year — they pretty much mate and die.
But hope springs eternal. The squid born last summer are today holed up about 200 miles offshore somewhere near the continental shelf, doing what squid do while they wait for the chance to come back and visit us at MacMillan Wharf come late spring.
EXPEDITIONS
From Truro to Antarctica With Poet-Naturalist Liz Bradfield
Join her for a guided walk in wintry Hatches Harbor
Longtime Truro resident Elizabeth Bradfield travels in far-reaching yet compatible directions. She’s a published poet, photographer, environmentalist, and associate professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Brandeis University. She spends time every year working as a naturalist and guide in the high latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic.
And this, too: Bradfield is a collaborator, receiving and spreading energy along the way. She recently worked with visual artist Antonia Contro to create a hand-bound letterpress book, Theorem, published by Candor Arts in an edition of only 30 copies. She describes it as a “conversation between text and image, mapping a journey back in time.”
And Bradfield is the founder and editor-in-chief of Broadsided Press, a monthly collage of literary and visual arts consisting of poems and flash-fiction that are selected from submissions and forwarded to a pool of artists, who create a painting, a sculpture, or a photograph as a visual response. Outer Cape artists Bailey Bob Bailey, Janice Redman, and Karen Cappotto have been contributors. The paired result is a “broadside” — a pdf emailed to grass-roots “vectors” who print and post it where they live.
“It’s like sending out little carrier pigeons,” Bradfield says. “There have been 300 or so broadsides by now.” She plans on self-publishing a “best of” Broadsided later this year.
Bradfield grew up in Tacoma, Wash., and spent three weeks each summer traveling up and down the northwest coast, vacationing with her family. A literature and women’s studies major at the University of Washington, she was all set to go to graduate school when a job as a deckhand came up, so she spent a year on small eco-tour ships, traveling back and forth from Alaska to Baja California.
“That changed me totally,” she says. “For me, there’s always been this parallel course, a real love of boats and natural history, and a love of books and words.”
She eventually got an M.F.A. in literature from the University of Alaska, and after a romance that began when she was a deckhand on a boat in Baja and met the naturalist guide on board who was familiar with the Cape, Bradfield packed up and moved, landing in the wilds of Truro.
You can experience her talents as a poet-naturalist this Saturday morning in a guided walk on the dunes and marsh of Hatches Harbor in the Cape Cod National Seashore in Provincetown, along with Center for Coastal Studies biologist Lisa Sette. Registration is required with CCS.
Or pick up a copy of Toward Antarctica: An Exploration at a local library or bookstore. Published last May by Boreal Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press, it’s Bradfield’s 150-page personal travelogue through the frigid yet fertile polar landscape. Readers who enjoy poetry’s associative connections can linger over her approach to the classical Japanese haibun form — diary-like prose combined with short poems. Color photography (she uses a digital SLR with a 400-mm lens, as well as a point-and-shoot camera) supplants the form’s traditional calligraphy.
“I am not a quote, unquote wildlife photographer,” Bradfield says. “My goal was never to publish in National Geographic. For this book, I chose images that were evocative and surprising to me. There’s information, and then there’s emotion. I am very interested in photographs that somehow transcend their digital origins to feel truly personal.”
One of the dangers of eco-tourism is habitat degradation, with humans as the invasive species. “There was never an indigenous human population in the Antarctic, making the place totally unique on the planet,” Bradfield writes, and she describes in the book searching passengers coming aboard for even small things like seeds hiding in the cuffs of pants: “A crew finds a seed in Velcro, plucks it out. Shouts ‘One saved albatross!’ Parka, pack, gloves, hat, walking stick. Ten coats later another grass seed — ‘One saved albatross.’”
In a blue-gray photograph of Point Wild, Elephant Island, penguins preen and nap in the shadow of a monument. “It was on this toenail of land that Sir Ernest Shackleton’s crew waited 137 days for ‘the boss’ to return and rescue them,” Bradfield writes. Though Shackleton was involved in the rescue, the crew was first found by the Chilean captain whom the monument honors.
In another image in the book, a cove is packed with the seals that were once hunted close to extinction for their fur coats. “Today, they are formidable and amazing,” Bradfield says. Given time, and limited human intrusion, nature can rebound.
In response to a question about environmental changes on the Outer Cape, Bradfield says, “Preparing to travel to the Arctic, I realized there is plant life on the Outer Cape similar to what I was to experience. There is the bareness and fragility of the sandy soil. And, of course, there is the fragility of Cape Cod from climate change, causing storms and rising sea levels. It’s a through line everywhere.”
Walking the Line
The event: Guided walk with poet-naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield and Center for Costal Studies biologist Lisa Sette
The time: Saturday, Feb. 15, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
The place: The dunes and marsh at Hatches Harbor in Provincetown
The cost: $25; pre-registration is required: call Lisa Sette at (508) 487-3622, ext. 101
ENVIRONMENT
East Harbor Is Thriving, But Is That Enough?
Small measures help sea creatures; bigger ones could buffer sea-level rise
TRURO — Recent research at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown has documented the current state of East Harbor’s benthic communities — species that live in the sediments on the lagoon floor. To their surprise, scientists discovered these organisms are thriving far away from the culvert that allows seawater to enter the lagoon. That’s the good news.
There are reasons to do more in the nearly 20-year-old restoration effort, according to Mark Adams, a coastal geoscientist with the Cape Cod National Seashore. That is, if one goal of tidal restoration is to buffer the Outer Cape from storm surges as sea levels rise.
“The classic example is New Orleans,” Adams explained. “Salt marshes serve as a buffer around estuaries. They slow down wave energy. With those marshes lost in the Mississippi Delta, the levees could not stand up to the direct hit of flood water.”
But the scientists are undecided about whether more restoration — further increasing the tidal flow — is necessarily a good idea. Cost and complexity are the disincentives.
What’s Good for Worms
Center for Coastal Studies scientists and study co-authors Agnes Mittermayr and Mark Borrelli explained that the fineness of sediment is more important to bottom-dwelling critters than proximity to the source of tidal flow in the system. Their analysis showed that sediment grain size could explain 84 percent of species distribution in East Harbor.
When an ecosystem is first opened up to tidal flow — by building a culvert to the ocean, for example — saltwater organisms are able to access new habitat beyond the culvert. At first, their range is constrained by salinity, acidity, and other factors that slowly morph as saltwater infiltrates the system. With time, as the habitat improves for ocean organisms, they can live farther away from the culvert.
That’s just what has happened in East Harbor. “We don’t see any difference between areas close to and far away from the culvert in terms of species diversity,” Mittermayr said.
The team looked for tiny invertebrates, like worms and mollusks, living in sediment samples collected from 16 sites around the lagoon and was surprised to find that the number and diversity of these animals had increased dramatically. For example, in a 2011 study, just 7 species of mollusk were identified in East Harbor. In contrast, 24 species were identified in Mittermayr’s and Borrelli’s recent study.
Mollusks and other invertebrates living in the surface sediments are a boon to the entire ecosystem. Although perhaps underappreciated by wildlife enthusiasts, these tiny creatures are the basis of the food web, feeding fish and birds, Mittermayr said.
The scientists were also surprised to find eel grass, important for the ecosystem, growing in East Harbor. “Eel grass is incredibly valuable habitat,” Borrelli said. With hiding spots for small fish, “life flocks to it,” he added.
Sea grass is an indicator species that suggests good water quality. If water contains more than 0.35 micrograms of nitrogen per liter, eel grass cannot grow, implying that East Harbor’s water is very low in nitrogen, Mittermayr said.
Action and Impact
East Harbor, also called Pilgrim Lake, is a 346-acre back barrier tidal lagoon that was isolated from the ocean for over 100 years. In 1868 a 1,000-foot inlet to the northwest was filled in to make way for the railroad, isolating the estuary from any saltwater flow. The lagoon became anoxic (oxygen-deprived), with noxious odors and midges making the area unpleasant for human visitors.
After a massive fish kill in 2002, a culvert was opened to allow two-way flow between the estuary and Cape Cod Bay. Since then, the system has shown remarkable improvement as the water became more oxygenated and saltwater species moved in.
But in recent years, the estuary has received less tidal flow due to the failure in 2016 of the culvert between Cape Cod Bay and Moon Pond, a small pond connecting the bay to East Harbor.
According to town documents, the town decided to repair the culvert in two phases, the first of which would address the seaward section of the pipe between Shore Road and Cape Cod Bay, which was slumping and affected by multiple sinkholes. At the annual Truro town meeting in 2017, voters agreed to borrow $3.7 million for the project.
Dept. of Public Works Director Jarrod Cabral wrote in an email to the Independent that Phase I of the culvert project was completed in spring 2019. The repair restored the culvert’s original dimensions of 48 inches by 72 inches. The second section, between Shore Road and Route 6, is still in the permitting process to be removed and replaced, Cabral wrote.
Mittermayr and Borrelli said that East Harbor’s quick rejuvenation is likely due to the fact that it is an undeveloped area.
Looking for a Buffer
Is the progress so far enough? Not if you’re a fish, according to Mittermayr. “If you’re a fish or looking for new habitat, East Harbor could benefit from more tidal flow.” The tidal flushing would mean more oxygen exchange and would help maintain the salinity level in the lagoon after rains, helping saltwater organisms thrive.
As for humans interested in enlisting the marsh in climate adaptation, Seashore ecologist Stephen Smith said that East Harbor’s tidal range is still too constricted for saltwater to reach the marsh platform. And because salinity dictates where salt marsh vegetation can grow, the lagoon is still dominated by freshwater plants, like phragmites and cattail, which offer fewer protective benefits.
“Currently, there’s a fringe of salt marsh flora,” said Smith. “If we get more water in the system, that stuff will be able to spread.” But bringing in more of the tide would require quite a big opening at the culvert, Smith said.
More tidal flow might affect surrounding structures. Specifically, if a tidal flow of several feet were introduced, Borelli predicts there would be problems with Route 6A. “There’s always a trade off with restoration — how much benefit you’ll get with increased tidal range,” he said. “You start to reach the point of diminishing returns.”
To understand the potential benefits would require consideration of bigger scale threats and benefits.
National Seashore Supt. Brian Carlstrom told the Independent that the park is working with the town to maximize flow to the system.
“The value of tidal estuaries is immense,” Carlstrom said. “We’re continually looking at areas where we can improve them. It’s part of our mission, and we try wherever we have the possibility to restore them.”
“It’s an ecosystem, and we’re part of the ecosystem,” Borrelli said. “If it’s healthy, then we benefit too.”
ENVIRONMENT
Horseshoe Crabs in Comeback
Their return to East Harbor may hold clues to the success of tidal restoration projects
TRURO — Since the once-thriving salt-marsh ecosystem called East Harbor was partially reopened to tidal flow in 2002, ocean organisms have been rapidly recolonizing the estuary. Researchers now hope to understand its changing ecology by documenting the success of horseshoe crabs, which have recently been found spawning in East Harbor (sometimes called Pilgrim Lake).
Scientists from the Cape Cod National Seashore, the Center for Coastal Studies, and Antioch University of New England are about to dig into two projects to collect baseline data and document horseshoe crab behavior in the partially restored tidal lagoon. The work, to begin in April and continue for two years, builds on an effort that began in 2018 and was slowed by the government shutdown the following year.
Eight Solid Ideas for Reducing Waste
Shifting the way we think about trash and recycling
Throughout Barnstable County, the Commonwealth, and the country, municipalities are struggling with the very real issue of too much trash with no place to put it, and the accompanying increase in handling costs. The Independent’s recent article on Provincetown’s town budget [Jan. 16, page 8] highlighted the fact that increased waste management costs are about equivalent to the overage in this year’s budget. While the select board grapples with the Herculean task of cutting costs, there are a few things we residents and even visitors can do to make a dent in the skyrocketing cost of handling our solid waste. Given that costs are tied to weight, here are some suggestions:
- Buy less stuff. Period. The less stuff we have, the less there will be to throw “away” later.
- When we do buy stuff, opt for the stuff with less packaging to throw “away.” Buy in bulk.
- Does it still work? Is it in good condition? Try donating it to the swap shop, Ruthie’s, or the Provincetown Mall (Methodist Church Thrift Store), and give someone else a chance to enjoy or employ it.
- Before clicking “check out” online, consider the packaging involved with that shipment, and whether the item can be purchased in person locally or even off Cape, with a little planning.
- Take advantage of our transfer station’s acceptance of textiles, mattresses, metal, wood, electronics, light bulbs, packing peanuts, and corrugated cardboard — none of those items should ever be thrown “away.”
- Compost all the organics. Even in our little hamlet with a rat problem, there are ways of composting household food scraps so as to remove 30 to 40 percent of the weight of our solid waste while not attracting varmints. Vermiculture is one way; a well-managed, contained backyard composter is another. Ask someone who is doing it already for advice.
- Understand that recycling is a myth when it comes to most plastics, and any choice you can make that is not a single-use plastic item will ultimately reduce the waste load — especially since trash and recyclables now cost the same per ton for the town to handle.
- Push for change. We consumers can only do so much with our individual choices. Ask your reps to support legislation that encourages Extended Producer Responsibility, where the manufacturer is required to take back and recycle or re-integrate the item at the end of its life.
Provincetown already has a great track record in regulating our trash and recycling, probably because we are immersed in an environment adversely affected by pollution (the ocean). We led the Cape in banning plastic bags back in 2015, and we have since phased out plastic straws and #6 Polystyrene. The town collects and recycles cigarette butts in an effort to keep the streets and beaches clean. We install more free filtered water bottle-filling stations every year, and single-use plastic water bottles may be on their way out. Helium balloons have been banned since 1993! Making small shifts to our habits, and occasional big shifts to our way of thinking, will help the town reduce its costs for dealing with our waste.
Bottom line: there is no “away.” Our convenient trash and recycling collection allows us to think we’ve done our part by lugging the stuff to the curb — but we can make the most difference long before that step.
Laura Ludwig is coordinator of the Marine Debris & Plastics Program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.
Doing Good
New Year’s Plunge
A balmy 38-degree day brought a sunny mood to the Provincetown Polar Bear Plunge on Jan 1. Organizer Steve Katsurinis said this year’s event, sponsored by the Harbor Lounge, Yolqueria, and 8 Dyer Hotel, raised about $2,500 for the Center for Coastal Studies.
ENVIRONMENT
Wellfleet Resident Challenges Shark Mitigation Study
Says visual detection technology was improperly evaluated
WELLFLEET — Kristian Sexton, who says he is developing an aerial imaging system using drones to detect sharks, claims that there are “a number of serious problems” with the Woods Hole Group (WHG) Shark Mitigation Study that was presented at a public forum in October at Nauset Regional High School.
After the forum, which was attended by about 200 people, many of whom stood up to ask questions or make statements, an online comment period extended to Dec. 16. Sexton was the only person to submit a written comment, according to Leslie Reynolds, chief ranger at the Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS).
“I’m not too surprised,” Reynolds said. “I think those who wanted to make comments made them at that public event.”
Still, it was expected that after having time to read through the study people would submit responses during the comment period.
Sexton, a pilot and CEO of Moosh Systems, submitted a 20-page document outlining his concerns with the WHG analysis of visual detection methods for sharks in Cape Cod waters.
“For me, [the Woods Hole Group] lost all credibility,” Sexton told the Independent. “The report was a failure.”
The WHG study, a collaboration among Lower Cape towns, CCNS, and Atlantic White Shark Conservancy (AWSC), cost about $50,000 and surveyed 27 mitigation methods, including technology-based, barrier-based, and biologically based alternatives. Ultimately, WHG concluded that there is no silver bullet that can guarantee safety for swimmers at Cape Cod beaches.
To analyze visual detection methods — planes, helicopters, drones, towers, etc. — the WHG report reviewed one study, Sexton argued, that focused specifically on the ability of human observers in a fixed-wing plane and helicopter to spot roughly eight-foot wooden shark analogs moored in the water.
Sexton said that WHG did not understand the study and reported its results incorrectly.
Sexton said that the conditions of the waters in Australia, where the study was carried out, cannot be directly applied to Cape Cod waters, although he did agree with WHG that it’s impossible to detect all sharks in the water through any form of visual detection.
At the end of its visual detection analysis, WHG stated, “It is likely that this level of performance will carry across all methods of visual detection.”
Sexton said that there are no references or evidence for this assertion. “There’s no theory there,” he said.
Adam Finkle of WHG declined to comment on Sexton’s analysis. He said that it is ultimately up to the regional shark working group, made up of Outer Cape town officials, CCNS officials, and the AWSC, to determine how to address comments.
Truro Town Manager Rae Ann Palmer told the Independent in November that town officials and Seashore officials planned to discuss responses once the comment period ended. Palmer did not respond to a call last week.
Reynolds said more research will be conducted this summer by Greg Skomal, the CCNS, and the Center for Coastal Studies. She said that scientists at Coastal Studies will be studying the nearshore environment across the Outer Cape to better understand tides, sediment movement, and channels or highways that sharks are most likely to pass through.
“We want to understand how sharks travel along the coast,” she said. “There’s a lot more scientific research to be done.”
She added that beachgoers can expect more educational pop-up tents on sharks and water safety at beaches this summer.
“The shark working group is going to continue to work on education, research, and public safety,” she said, and added that the decision to implement any kind of technology would be made at a higher level than the towns or the Seashore.
THE YEAR-ROUNDER
Napi: An Appreciation
Back in 1969 we acquired a street dog named Napi. He was a real son of a bitch. I wanted to call him Walt (Whitman), but the name just wouldn’t stick for some reason. After being abandoned by some heartless soul, the dog had taken up temporary residence on Helen and Napi Van Dereck’s recently arrived sailboat, so we called him Napi. (We couldn’t very well call him Helen.)
Napi the dog was a most independent soul, an outlaw, a lover, a fighter, and a roamer. I spent many days searching the town for him, trying to bring him home before Philly Alexander, the town’s dogcatcher, apprehended him. I remember one late winter afternoon going down Alden Street (I think it was) shouting, “Napi! Napi! Napi!” when a window suddenly flew open and the estimable Pat Saffron leaned out and called, “What do you want with my son?” A small town experience. Pat Saffron died on Christmas Day in 1993.
Her son, that son, Napi Van Dereck, died on Christmas Day 2019. He joins many other good people who left this town this year. He will probably garner a bigger obituary, not because he was better than others, but because he was bigger:outsized, larger than life, a force to be reckoned with, in your face. Napi: whatever he was, he was ours.
People are saying it is the end of an era, and it is true. Napi’s life spanned an important segment of Provincetown’s history, and he was a major player in that history. Imagine: Harry Kemp (1883-1960) would buy little Napi an occasional cookie at Tillie’s Market. How many people alive today go back to those days, when an eccentric poet was a town mainstay? Napi told me once that he remembered the town road that became Route 6 being staked out.
Napi was a real boatman. He knew his boats. He was a constant presence on the wharf. He was a staunch supporter of the Center for Coastal Studies from the very beginning. Its mission was his mission. He was a major collector of art and a patron of artists, none more than Jackson Lambert: Napi saw the genius in him, and in so many others. Napi’s renowned collection of local art now outlives him as an entity unto itself.
Napi was a Beachcomber in good standing (there is no other kind). Napi was a businessman who created a restaurant that, like his art, will outlive him and serve this town. The place is indescribable: a hodge-podge of art and artifact and unusual features that tell you at once that you are not in a usual restaurant.
When I say “Napi” I mean Napi and Helen: no better example of a couple complementing each other exists. He was the front man, and she the strong woman behind the scenes. They accomplished it all together.
Adjectives for Napi: cantankerous, over the top, solipsistic, obstinate; he had a healthy ego; he was a competitive talker. He had to make his point and he had to win every argument. (“You’re not listening to me!”) Ever wonder how he got his name? It was bestowed on him, he told me, as a very young child by his stepfather, and is short for Napoleon — in recognition, even then, of these qualities.
These same qualities, which (mostly) endeared him to us all, did not work in every circumstance. Napi remembered working as a dishwasher at Ciro and Sal’s in the early ’70s, but I remember him on the floor, as a busboy — and not a very good one. My then-girlfriend-now-wife Deborah was the hostess, and she would say something like, “Napi, take those two deuces and make a four-top, and set the home table for a party of eight…,” or something like that, whereupon Napi would pause, reflect, and say, “No, I think it would be better to use the four-top at the corner table and keep the two deuces and use the family table for the party of eight.” And so the debate went on, as the people waited to be seated.
Ah, Napi: seat them any which way. You were ours, and this town is the better for it and will truly never be the same.
