News and Events for Nantucket Island
As the old proverb goes, “If you love something, set it free…” For nature and wild things, it should be edited to read “If you love something, let it be.” There can be a fine line between loving nature and over-loving nature. This is evident at some of the most popular National Parks like Yellowstone, Arches, or Joshua Tree. Some of these most famous natural areas are getting loved to death: overcrowding, trampling vegetation, garbage, etc.
For more than 45 years Jean Rioux has advocated for the North Atlantic Right Whale and legislation to protect it. She has spent countless summers set up day and night on Main Street or Federal Street offering education, facts, and ways to help. Jean has collected thousands of signatures and shared her passion with each person signing. When COVID-19 struck the island last year, Jean was undeterred.
The results of the 2021 Nantucket Land Council and Linda Loring Nature Foundation BioBlitz are in and we’re sharing some highlights and interesting observations from this highly successful exploration of nature on Nantucket!
For those who didn’t read the earlier article (yesterdaysisland.com/take-the- 2021-bioblitz-challenge/), a BioBliz is basically a mad dash in a specified area to catalog as many species as possible. The 2021 NLC/LLNF BioBlitz sought to document the biodiversity of Nantucket during the month of July—a perfect month for a BioBlitz.
According to the great authority known as social media, the Nantucket population at the onset of August was somewhere between 90,000 and 100,000 people. I cannot imagine that our island can hold that many people!
If you try finding a parking spot, a restaurant reservation, or a babysitter, you know that those numbers might be accurate. Reports of water use, electricity use, and empty shelves at the grocery store all point to lots and lots of people on the island.
A mysterious bird illness has been plaguing songbirds in the eastern US this summer. The specific cause and mode of spread are still unknown, but it has been spreading. State and federal wildlife officials, researchers, and birders are concerned, and investigations continue to find a cause. With many breeding songbirds on-island, local conservation groups are keeping an eye out for the mysterious illness that has yet to be reported in Massachusetts.
This Sunday, August 1, 2021 marks the 203rd birthday of Maria Mitchell, America’s first woman astronomer. Unfortunately, last year due to pandemic restrictions, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) was forced to cancel her birthday open house that the MMA has been hosting since they opened their doors to the […]
As an invasive species plant ecologist, I work a lot with non-native plants, their invasion history and how and why plants were transported to the island. One fascinating and little-known fact about invasions on Nantucket actually comes in the form of a small, cute mammal. One of the biggest invasive species problems Nantucket has ever faced was the black-tailed prairie dog.
This Wednesday, July 28, at 7pm, Gitanjali Rao, TIME magazine’s first Kid of the Year, will speak at the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association’s (MMA) Science Speaker Series. Her talk, “The Role of Science and Technology as a Catalyst for Social Change” is part of this island organization’s Science Speaker Series […]
eastern, south-central, and mid-Atlantic states, their distribution has been expanding. Lone Star ticks can now be found as far west as Colorado and Wyoming and as far north as Maine. They now co-occur with blacklegged ticks in coastal Massachusetts, including Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket, Tuckernuck, Martha’s Vineyard, Naushon, and Cuttyhunk.
