• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • For the past two summers I have been fortunate to visit the Tuckernuck Land Trust’s (or TLT, website can be accessed at http://www.tuckernucklandtrust.org/) field station and do some basic biological collection (bees and mosquitoes) and give […]
Island Science
Flying Dragons
• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • What is strong, a skilled hunter, ephemeral, eats mosquitoes and feeds a wide variety of birds, fish, and frogs? Give up? It is the beautiful dragonfly, currently gracing Nantucket ponds and wetlands this summer. Some of […]
Bay Scallops, Nantucket Gold
• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • Nantucket is home to the last commercially viable “wild” bay scallop fishery in the U.S. (and essentially world-wide) and preserving this treasure is, in a way, tantamount to preserving Nantucket. Other fisheries up and down the […]
Sponges, Climate Change, & Bay Scallops
• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • We pulled up a common resident of our harbors the other day while doing a dredge for our Marine Ecology class off Pocomo Point. Scattered amongst the spider crabs and scallops and loose eelgrass and algae […]
Ghost Crabs!
• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • The name of this week’s article sounds like an awesome indie horror film doesn’t it? Well ghost crabs are here and probably here to stay on Nantucket. Thanks to the eagle eyes of Manomet Center for […]
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit
• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • This week’s title comes from the British tradition adopted in New England to say “rabbit” or “rabbits” several times in succession or “white rabbit” upon first waking on the first day of the month in order […]
As American as … the American Eel
As we finish celebrating our country’s birth as a nation, everyone is in a patriotic mood and what could be more patriotic than, the American Eel. Okay, I am sure you can think of something more patriotic, but this is a nature column. We have an adorable baby eel swimming […]
Orcas: Too Big to Hold
• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • I just got back from the Nantucket Film Festival’s (NFF) showing of “Blackfish”, an excellent and provocative documentary describing in excruciating detail the many issues of keeping Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) in captivity. The majority of […]