ATTLEBORO — An environmental group is hoping the city will help its efforts to save the right whales — by planting a forest or two. The Ocean River Institute recently visited Attleboro because, when contacting eight cities to discuss planting what are called Miyawaki forests, Attleboro was the most responsive. They found two potential sites…
In Shetland’s Lerwick Harbor, the grey stone buildings stand close together. Rows of houses line streets that march downhill in curving lines to meet the sea. They buttress against the cold winds that race across the northernmost fetch of the North Sea. On the first Sunday of October, Saint Columba’s Church of Scotland fills with…
My first experience with a right whale was as a college student alone on the deck of a twenty-seven-foot sailboat. Suddenly, beside me was what looked like a sandbar the length of the boat. Yet, it was alive and moving forward. Those below decks thought I was having an epileptic attack. I had never imagined…
Phytoplankton in the Gulf of Maine have become 65% less productive. The Gulf of Maine is home to the North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered species with less than 350 left alive. Right whales feed on zooplankton, krill, and other small crustaceans. These animals are fed by phytoplankton, organisms at the base of the…
None of us are strangers to the reports of the Gulf of Maine heating 97% faster than the world’s oceans. However, the actual reasons for this can be lost in the constant headlines about global warming and rising greenhouse gases. To explain this extraordinary phenomenon, let’s look closely at four factors: surface seawater temperatures, heat…
The tall ship Tecla, a Dutch North Sea sailing herring dragger built in 1915, was bound for Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands. It was tied by three heavy hawser lines to the ferry quay in Ullapool, Northwest Scotland, a town of white-washed buildings packed together for the herring fishery. We were ready to sail…
Massachusetts officially declared April 24 as Right Whale Day to raise awareness about the endangered: North Atlantic right whales, the state’s official marine mammal. Right whales have been coming to Cape Cod Bay in April for as long as there has been a Cape Cod Bay. These sandy, shoaly waters warm faster than deeper, dark-bottom…
“Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover California in more than four feet (1.25 meters) of water.” This report was alarming for many who relied on experts’ findings, particularly regarding climate change. It was not scary for those who paid attention in Geography…
