Eve Zuckoff

“March, march, march, march!”

On a hot August night in Falmouth, fitness coach Anne Curi Preisig leads a group of women through a workout in her backyard. 

Even after 7 p.m., it’s still 80 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The Trump administration announced plans on Monday to roll back some protections laid out in the Endangered Species Act. The changes include reversals on habitat protections, and removing some safeguards for species that are considered “threatened,” the status below endangered.

In the wake of last week’s tornadoes, local leaders and state officials gathered at the OneCape summit in Harwich to talk about the environmental and economic challenges facing Cape Cod.

The tornado that touched down on Cape Cod on Tuesday was only the third ever reported in the Cape’s history, according to the National Weather Service.

So how – and why – did such a rarity occur?   

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,” Hudak said. 

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.