Tag: Nature Studies

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
Island Science

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 […]

Boring Sponge
Island Science

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 […]

rabbits | Nantucket, MA
Island Science

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 […]

Island Science

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 […]

Cisco Beach Erosion
Island Science

Coastal Beach Processes & Erosion

• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • There is perhaps no other topic concerning Nantucket that is more of a hot button issue than erosion. All around the island we are experiencing between 0.74 to 12.0+ feet of erosion on our beaches and […]