BiodiversityWorks launched a new website called the Martha’s Vineyard Atlas of Life, where Islanders can record the biodiversity that exists on the Island. This project was launched with support from the Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation. Claire Callagy, the foundation’s philanthropic program manager, said the foundation made a three-year commitment to help launch this project. […]
The large number of dead birds found on the Island’s shores in June have been confirmed to have died from starvation. In June, the state issued an announcement suspecting highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) to be killing birds, including “seagulls, ducks, terns, and cormorants,” in Massachusetts’ coastal areas. For several months prior to the announcement, […]
August has settled over us just as hot, humid, and dry as July but with more people. The best escape is the beach, which, although crowded, I find with a carefully placed towel and a good book, I can always find some respite from the crowds. I marvel at the people who make it to […]
As the most recently departed generation of Islanders would have told us, there were no deer on Martha’s Vineyard. “There wasn’t any then,” declared Fanny Jenkinson (1893–1994) of Chilmark to Linsey Lee of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in 1983. “Never heard of a deer.” Basil Welch of Vineyard Haven told Lee, “I was born and […]