Eve Zuckoff

At the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Christy Hudak, a researcher in the Right Whale Ecology Program, leaned over a microscope looking at a water sample, counting and categorizing different kinds of plankton.  

“Right whales love specific type of plankton, which are called copepods. They are more of a tiny  crustacean plankton—think of crabs, or shrimp,” Hodak said. 
 

For decades, endangered right whales spent summers in Canadian waters like the Bay of Fundy and the Roseway Basin, feasting on these copepods.  But copepod numbers in those places have fallen in recent years. 

In the last month, eight North Atlantic right whales have been found dead in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, including two members of the critically endangered species this past week.  

Canadian authorities say work to determine these new whales' cause of death is ongoing.

Whatever the cause of these latest deaths, researchers worry collisions with ships are increasingly to blame.

Hundreds of spectators crowded onto West Dennis beach Tuesday night to watch volunteers and scientists from the New England Aquarium release a 340 lb loggerhead sea turtle back into the ocean. 

She's the the largest loggerhead ever rescued and rehabilitated in New England. Her name is Munchkin. 

On a typical June evening at Santuit Pond in Mashpee, fishermen like Ted Kingsley can be found perched by the shore, or wading through the water, looking for bass. 

“The [deepest] I've been -- up to my ankles in it, maybe,” Kingsley said.   

He said he won’t go in past his ankles, though; something about the water isn’t right.