Association to Preserve Cape Cod

Photo by Sue Machie

What I'm Thinking...

Healing Powers

by Andrew Gottlieb, Executive Director

Time in nature is said to be good for your mental and physical well-being. While I generally accepted that notion, I have never quite experienced it as viscerally as I did last week. Off for the week with many visitors, I was excited to see I could not shut down the repeating doom loop running in my head. Work pressures, life pressures, deep distress about the politics of the day and a whole host of other things both big and small rented serious space in my head and I could not turn it all off.

A day on the Brewster flats broke the spell. The deep blue skies, the clear water, the clean sand bottom, the birds, striped bass and kids running carefree across the flats reset my mind. There truly is a healing power to nature and we would all benefit from being outside more. Perhaps many of you, most I hope, are reading this with a sense of, “yeah, no kidding, we knew that already." For the rest of you, get outside!

Now setting all of this above aside for a minute, my next thought upon returning to the fray on Monday was that nothing good happens by accident, especially in the world of environmental protection.

Preservation of resources requires constant vigilance and work. Land originally protected for natural resource preservation is being hungrily eyed by opportunistic housing developers as the next best source of land for more housing. Land set aside for water supply protection seems to some the ideal place to site a multipurpose machine gun range. What you or I see as a place of boundless natural beauty and habitat in Cape Cod Bay appears to Holtec as an ideal dumping ground for radioactive waste. The list goes on and on, but the point is that not only is the protection of these natural places up to us, our own well-being relies on it.

The threats to our natural world are unending and we need to answer the challenge. Your support has empowered APCC to obtain the firepower to take on the big and important fights of the day. The job never ends, however, and we need your help during this summer fundraising season to remain the backstop the Cape’s environment needs. Please give what you can and then go outside and feel good about what you just did.

SAVE THE DATE

APCC's Annual Meeting

Sunday, August 25th

12:00 p.m.

APCC's Ecosystem Restoration Program

As part of a five-year project, APCC is conducting salt marsh monitoring at Chase Garden Creek, located on the north side of Cape Cod in Dennis and Yarmouth. This information will be used to inform future restoration actions to improve the marsh’s resilience to sea level rise.

Please use the registration link to sign-up for the Chase Garden Creek Public Zoom Meeting hosted by the Association to Preserve Cape Cod and scheduled for Thursday, July 18 at 4:00 p.m.

This work is funded by the Lavori Sterling Foundation and private APCC foundation funds.

APCC Welcomes New Staff Member!

APCC is excited to announce that Molly Autery joined the Ecosystem Restoration Program team on July 2nd as our salt marsh specialist. She will conduct pre- and post-restoration monitoring in salt marshes across Cape Cod, including vegetation and salinity monitoring, water level logging, and more.

Molly graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a degree in geology and is completing her master’s in geosciences. She has spent the last four years conducting research in salt marshes throughout Maine and Massachusetts, studying sediment deposition and coastal environmental change. She is excited to share and develop her experiences with APCC!

Above: Molly collects sediment traps at Cousins River Marsh in Freeport, Maine, to measure seasonal sediment deposition. Photo credit: Dr. Erin Peck.

Butterfly Conservation

Some things you should know about conserving butterflies.

The Xerces Society Keep Monarchs Wild: Why Captive Rearing Isn’t the Way to Help Monarchs

NY Times What's Wrong With Butterflies Raised in Captivity?

Plant It and They Will Come!

Rose milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, with monarch butterfly. Photo credit: Helen Mangelsdorf

A monarch butterfly looks for any type of milkweed on which to lay her eggs. Milkweed is the only plant that the monarch caterpillar can eat.

So, if you want to see this lovely butterfly, your landscape has to have milkweed and be chemical-free. And yes, some plant leaves will be eaten!

We are taking appointments now through August (first come, first serve). Click here for more information.

2024 testimonials:

This is so fantastic!! You have provided so many great ideas and lots of detail, everything I need to be successful!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! - Kathy W.

Thank you for your ideas, suggestions, recommendations, and education. - Judith B.

Most excellent!! VERY well done, and SO much useful information. Definitely exceeded my expectations, which were pretty high! - Eli W.

APCC's Ecolandscape Audit Program is hands down, the best investment for the money that I have made in my yard EVER. What a comprehensive evaluation! It will leave you inspired to better your Cape Cod landscape in relation to water use, plant selection, and pollinator & animal habitat. Wonderful, wonderful! - Rick M.

Events Hosted by Others

In Flux: Perspectives on Arctic Change from Woodwell Scientists and Art Science Fellows July 11 @ 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Highfield Hall & Gardens FREE

Join Woodwell Climate Research Center’s Dr. Susan Natali, Arctic program director and senior scientist, and Dr. Jennifer Watts, Arctic program director and associate scientist, along with Woodwell Art Science Fellows for an engaging panel discussion. This is a special opportunity to interact with those behind the research and art of Highfield’s summer exhibit "In Flux: Perspectives on Arctic Change from Woodwell Art Science Fellows."

Dr. Heather Goldstone, panel moderator, brings experience as a scientist, journalist, and former host of a weekly science-focused radio show to the conversation along with her passion to meld data and narrative in climate change stories that build awareness and inspire action. This public panel is hosted in collaboration with Woodwell Climate Research Center. Reception to follow.

Highfield’s Science & Environment Speaker Series is made possible in part through the generous support of the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, The Falmouth Fund, The Brabson Family Foundation, Cape Cod 5, the Woods Hole Foundation, and Woodwell Climate Research Center.

This event is FREE but seats are limited, so please register for the event in advance.

Register online today or call 508-495-1878 ext. 2.

APCC's Cyanobacteria Monitoring Program

Our cyanobacteria monitoring map is live for 2024. Results are displayed on the interactive map. You can sign up for cyanobacteria bloom alerts here - and receive a notice when a bloom is detected.

Guidelines for Cape-friendly Landscapes - an APCC publication

The Guidelines gives homeowners steps they can take in the design and maintenance of their properties that will support pollinators and birds, manage stormwater, conserve water, and protect the Cape's water quality. This 40-page booklet is beautifully illustrated by Marcy Ford with content that is easily digestible and supported by numerous resources for additional learning.

Thank you for this important book! Hopefully everyone of us with a yard will read it and put it to use! - Vicky Titcomb of Titcomb Bookshop

We've enjoyed creating it and hope it will help you with ideas to help you steward your piece of Cape Cod and maybe foster an environmental ethic in the decisions we all make in our own managed landscapes. Get your copy here—and maybe one for a friend?

We are grateful for the several retail shops that are partnering with us to make this publication more widely available: Brewster Book Store, Birdwatchers General Store, Crocker Nurseries, Wellfleet Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary, Cape Abilities Farm, Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, the Cape Cod Lavender Farm, Heritage Museums and Gardens, Titcomb's Bookshop, Sea Howl Bookshop, Soares Flower Garden Nursery, and Eight Cousins Bookshop.

If you are a retailer and would like to sell this publication at your store, contact Kristin at kandres@apcc.org.

You can also view the book's content as a pdf on our website.

The Pollinator Pathway Cape Cod is a group of organizations promoting native plants and pollinator-friendly land care practices to create a boat load of safe oases for our native bees, butterflies and a whole host of other pollinators that are crucial to the health of our ecosystems.

Join us! It's easy. There are no fees. You just need to pledge to ADD native plants, SUBTRACT a little lawn, AVOID yard chemicals, especially pesticides, and LEAVE the leaves. And, help us spread the word. Please get on the map to show your support of pollinators on Cape Cod!

You can purchase now your 9-inch aluminum Pollinator Pathway Cape Cod sign at Hyannis Country Garden, Crocker Nurseries, Brewster Book Store, Orleans Conservation Trust, and

Cape Abilities Farm.

If you are a retailer, and you would like to sell the signs, you can order online here, or email pollinators@apcc.org.

APCC Merch