Photo courtesy of Shareen Davis

By Staff reports
Cape Codder
BREWSTER — How many menhaden can a mammoth mammal munch if a mammoth mammal could munch menhaden?

Quite a few it seems since gray seals, which are now abundant off the coast of Chatham, are eating menhaden, squid and other fish according to studies by Owen Nichols of Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. ...more

PCCS image taken under NOAA CFR 222.310, with authority of the ESA

CBS Boston
PROVINCETOWN (CBS) – A team from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies rescued two different endangered marine animals, a leatherback turtle and a humpback whale, from entanglements on Thursday.

After a recreational boater off Sesuit Harbor in Dennis reported an entangled leatherback turtle Thursday afternoon, the Marine Animal Entanglement team was immediately dispatched from Provincetown Harbor to evaluate the animal. The team freed the 700-pound leatherback turtle from the entanglement. ...more

Brian Sharp from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies helps to untangle a leatherback turtle off Sesuit Harbor in Dennis on July 7, 2011. PCCS image taken under NOAA CFR 222.310, with authority of the ESA

Cape Cod Times
By Mary Ann Bragg
PROVINCETOWN — A local team of marine animal rescuers freed both a leatherback turtle and a young humpback whale from nautical gear entanglements on Thursday.

The four-person rescue team from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies responded Thursday afternoon to a report of the entangled turtle off Sesuit Harbor in Dennis, in Cape Cod Bay. A recreational boater reported the animal's distress, and the team successfully untangled the 700-pound turtle from ropes and buoys, according to center spokeswoman Tanya Grady. ...more

Wicked Local photo by David Colantuono

Cape Codder
By Rich Eldred
CAPE COD — The sixth installment in a yearlong series celebrating the 50th anniversary of Cape Cod National Seashore.

The federal government purchased prime real estate when it bought the land that would become Cape Cod National Seashore 50 years ago. But now it’s got a little bit less than it had – about 350 feet by 30 miles less.

Mark Adams, GIS (geological information system) specialist at the Seashore, has taken advantage of the work of one of his predecessors, Henry Marindin, who surveyed the boundaries of the shoreline in 1888. ...more

A humpback whale breaches in Cape Cod Bay

Wicked Local Cape Cod
By Jesse Mechling
EASTHAM — Each spring the waters off Cape Cod swell with microscopic organisms called plankton, which form the basis for the ocean food web. These tiny plants and animals provide food for numerous larger species of bait fish, which in turn, lure one of the most majestic of sea animals here each year, the humpback whale. ...more

Evan McGlinn for The New York Times A gray seal off Muskeget Island west of Nantucket in June 2010. Six gray seals have been found shot to death on Cape Cod.

New York Times
By Abby Goodnough
HARWICH, Mass. — Summer’s arrival, usually cause for celebration on Cape Cod, has been dampened this year by a grim question: Who is killing the gray seals?

Six of them have been found shot in the head since late May, their carcasses discovered on beaches from Dennis to Chatham. The mystery has gripped people up and down the cape, and theories here are as plentiful as beach plums ...more

Donald Scarpone jigs for squid but finds few.

Vineyard Gazette
By Mark Alan Lovewell
Longfin inshore squid (loligo pealeii) may not be on the menu, but it is an important local seafood that has grown scarce.

Recreational and commercial fishermen are perplexed, wondering how a once profitable and abundant bait seems to have disappeared. Tackle shop owners can’t find enough of it. The draggers working in Nantucket Sound have had slim pickings. ...more

Provincetown Banner
By Kaimi Rose Lum
PROVINCETOWN — Take a geologist and two marine biologists and put them together in a makeshift classroom in an East End guesthouse. Give them a portable blackboard — and a healthy supply of serendipity — and you have the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.

Or at least a fledgling version of it. The year was 1973 or ’74, and times were troubled at land’s end. A proposal to build a solid-fill pier where Fisherman’s Wharf stands now had polarized the community, and the trio saw a need to provide some education on the intricacies of shoreline ecology. Meeting after a public hearing on the pier project, Dr. Graham Giese, the geologist, and Drs. Charles “Stormy” and Barbara Mayo, the marine biologists, agreed to pool their talents. ...more

ABC News
Endangered Whales Spotted Off Massachusetts Coast ...watch video

Researchers from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies found the whale with a rope caught in its mouth that probably came from a fishing boat, officials said. The Marine Animal Entanglement Response Team worked on freeing the whale for several hours and loosed the rope by making a single cut and using large buoys. ...more

Brian Sharp of the Marine Animal Entanglement Response team from PCCS approaches a whale in Cape Cod Bay on Friday entangled in more than 40 feet of rope. PCCS image taken under NOAA permit 932-1905

Cape Cod Times
PROVINCETOWN — A North Atlantic right whale was freed from entanglement Friday by the Marine Animal Entanglement Response team of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, according to a center press release.

The entangled whale was in the area of several other whales in Cape Cod Bay, by PCCS researchers conducting a right whale aerial survey. The whale had rope through its mouth that trailed more 40-feet beyond its tail, according to the release. The entanglement was potentially life-threatening because over time, the line extending from its mouth could cause further complications. ...more

PCCS image taken under NOAA permit 932-1905

WCVB-TV 5
PROVINCETOWN, Mass. - An entangled North Atlantic right whale was freed Friday in Cape Cod Bay.

The Marine Animal Entanglement Response team from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies spotted the whale in an area off Provincetown with several other whales. They said the mammal had rope through its mouth that trailed more than 40-feet beyond its tail. ...more

PCCS image taken under NOAA permit 932-1905

Cape Cod Today
Members of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies Marine Animal Entanglement Response Team freed a right whale entangled in ropes Friday. The entangled whale was spotted by researchers yesterday during an aerial survey, according to Tanya Grady, the Director of Communications for PCCS.

The whale, was spotted in Cape Cod Bay surrounded by several other whales. It had rope through its mouth that was trailing over 40-feet behind its tail. According to Grady, an entanglement of this nature is potentially life-threatening to the whale over time. ...more

Boston.com
By Vivian Ho, Globe Correspondent
Whale watchers won’t even have to leave land to see a spectacular sight.

A record number of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales have gathered close off the beaches of Provincetown and Truro and is expected to stay there for at least another week, said Charles “Stormy’’ Mayo, senior scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown ...more

Cape Cod Times
By Doug Fraser
PROVINCETOWN — Record numbers of right whales have been seen in Cape Cod Bay and adjacent waters this week, including sightings from some Truro beaches and the beaches at Herring Cove and Race Point in Provincetown.

The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies reported Wednesday that the Right Whale Conservation Program, run jointly by the Cape group and the state Division of Marine Fisheries, had documented 201 individual right whales in Cape Cod waters over the past week ...more

Cape Cod Today

It seems that April is the right time for whales to visit the waters just off Cape Cod. The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in a release Wednesday, reported that a record number of right whales have been seen in Cape Cod Bay and adjacent waters. According to PCCS, the whales are visible from the shore in Provincetown at Herring Cove Beach and Race Point.

The center's right whale program has documented 201 right whales off the Cape to date. Yesterday, researchers documented seeing over one hundred whales during a seven-hour research flight ...more

WGBH
The Point with Mindy Todd
Graham Giese, Co-founder and Senior Scientist at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies and Director of the Land and Sea Interaction Program, and Pat Hughes, PCCS Marine Policy Coordinator, discuss coastal changes and long-term planning ...listen

Cape Cod Magazine
Photos by Dan Cutrona
The Cape is full of hard-working individuals who balance office work community. Here are nine locals who are making Cape Cod a better (or in some cases, field work) with lending a helping hand in their place for future generations—and having fun while doing just that. ...more

Cape Codder
By Rich Eldred
PROVINCETOWN — It’s not often a slug stops someone in their tracks but Owen Nichols, director of the Marine Fisheries Initiative, was halted one night by a gray slug garishly spotted with black.

“I came across them one night walking back to my office in Provincetown working late and found one on the sidewalk at 11 or 12 o’clock at night. I’d never seen anything like it. I went back, hunted online and e-mailed the (Cape Cod Cooperative) extension office and they put me in touch with a retired entomologist.” ...more

WCAI FM
The Point with Mindy Todd
We sit down with Graham Giese and Charles “Stormy” Mayo who along with the late Barbara Mayo founded the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies 35 years ago.

We’ll discuss changes in environmental science over the last three decades and advances in techniques to help ...listen

Cape Codder
By Rich Eldred
BREWSTER — Watching whales has become a big time business on Cape Cod. But did you ever wonder what they do when we’re not watching, like at night?

Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies hopes to find out in a few weeks when the rarest of whales ...more

BBC-Earth News
By Ella Davis
Earth News Reporter
Blood-sucking sea lampreys feed on prey as big as minke whales, according to new research.

Scientists studying whales in Canada have challenged previous theories that lampreys attach to whales ...more

Boston Globe
By David Filipov
OFF THE COAST OF PROVINCETOWN — Charles “Stormy’’ Mayo descends from a long line of men who have made their living on the sea, but with one big difference. His forebears sometimes hunted the whales that appear off the shores of Cape Cod each spring.
He is trying to save them ...more

WCAI FM
By Brian Morris
There are currently less than 400 right whales in existence.

Each year, large numbers of these endangered animals arrive in Cape Cod Bay to feed on zooplankton.

Recently, Charles "Stormy" Mayo and a team of researchers from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies conducted an assessment of these right whales - identifying and photographing them, studying the food they eat, and analyzing their overall health ...listen

Cape Cod Times
By Mary Ann Bragg
PROVINCETOWN — Early spring has brought a record number of North Atlantic right whales to Cape Cod Bay.

An aerial survey done last week by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies indicated there were 60 right whales swimming in the bay, chowing down on the buffet of zooplankton in the waters offshore.

That's six times the number of the endangered whales ...more

Provincetown Banner
PROVINCETOWN — Over the course of the next few weeks, a walk along the beach between the Race Point and Wood End lighthouses will likely bring you startlingly close to one of the world’s most endangered species — the North Atlantic right whale. Since early February, the first of the migratory animals have been making their yearly reappearance in Cape Cod Bay, with record numbers reported this month. ...more