News

244 years ago, on the morning of September 27th, 1774, 1,500 Cape Cod residents gathered at the Old Colonial Courthouse in Barnstable. The protesters were upset about new, punitive laws the British had imposed shortly after the Boston Tea Party.

WCAI News Director Steve Junker hosts a roundup of some of the top local and regional news of the week, including: sharks and what we can do about them are the focus of a forum in Wellfleet, bringing together experts and community members; the National Seashore is getting an almost 10 million dollar fix-up; and MCAS results show a mixed bag for local schools.

As September wraps up, so too does another season of the Fishing News. But for many local anglers, this moment brings the hope of one more wave of great fishing: the Fall Run.

After the Cape’s first ever shark bite fatality, Wellfleet town officials met last night to take suggestions from shark experts and local residents about how to prevent another shark attack in the future.

This month's Books show topic is FOOD. Mindy Todd hosts the conversation in The Point studio, with guests Kelly Porter of Woods Hole Library, and Jill Erickson of Falmouth Public Library. They make our mouths water with quotes and selections from a huge range of literature relating to the culinary arts. Not just food, these books are also about love, yearning, our connection to the earth and growing things, indeed the fundamental elements of life. 

Amelia Earhart may be the most famous female aviator, but she was by no means the only or even the most skilled female pilot of her time. A number of other women not only broke through gender barriers but had skills, bravery and drive that surpassed their male counterparts. On The Point, we talk with Keith O’Brien about his book Fly Girls- Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History.

Kefir is the Russian word for a sour-tasting drink made with cow's milk. It's often confused with yogurt. This week on the Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay talks with a woman in Wellfleet making her own kefir and learns how the beverage is different from other fermented dairy products.

On this week's edition of Looking Skyward: The Fall Equinox means shorter days ahead, breadbox-size hopping robots land on a fast-moving asteroid, and astronomers think they’ve discovered Mr. Spock’s home planet.

The New England Fishery Management Council has voted to protect Atlantic herring from midwater trawl boats in a 12-mile buffer zone that would extend from Maine to the tip of Long Island. The matter has divided fishermen in the region, pitting midwater trawlers who fish herring against small boat fishermen, many of whom work off the Cape and Islands and who catch predator fish that rely on the herring as a food source.

Fall is here, but that doesn’t mean the threat of illness from mosquitoes and ticks is going away. In fact, mosquitoes are active until the first frost, which on the Cape, is likely still weeks away.

WCAI’s Kathryn Eident ventured out on a recent rainy day went out earlier this week to learn more about how the Cape Cod Mosquito Control Project keeps tabs on mosquitoes. Project Staff Entomologist Gabrielle Salkosky explained how they trap mosquitoes as Technician Audrey Russano checked the traps at a site near the radio station in Woods Hole. 

We are a weather-obsessed people – talking about the weather, prognosticating about the weather, complaining about the weather - so I assume you have checked the forecast for the next few days. But have you checked the BirdCast? Yes, there is such a thing, and it’s provided by your friends at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, as part of their quest to meet all of your birding needs. They are sort of becoming the Amazon.com of birding, but I digress.

Can I burn today?

Our marine and coastal environments are facing serious challenges: some have been going on for decades while others, such as the rapid increase in the white shark population and the lack of confirmed right whale births, is unprecedented. Sandy McFarlane believes how we address these issues will require an understanding of how we got to this moment, the complexity of the environment, and how we as humans fit into the larger ecosystem. 

It was only a matter of time. With critical masses of seals, sharks and people in the water, it couldn’t not happen. We knew this, yet somehow it was still a shock. People have a great capacity for denial, but there’s nothing like a violent death to make us sit up and take notice.

The death of a 26-year-old man off the coast of Wellfleet September 15th marked the first deadly shark attack in Massachusetts in more than 80 years.

But it was also the second shark attack here in a month. Sixty-one-year-old William Lytton was bitten by a great white off of Truro on August 15. He survived.