Winter at Chandler Hovey Park, Marblehead, MA. - Photo by Pam DiBona

Slack tide

I’ve been paying a lot more attention to my breath lately – awareness brought on because I noticed I haven’t been breathing much. Instead, I’ve been hyperventilating, holding my breath, and sighing quite a bit. But real breathing requires some focus. 

It turns out that I breathe quite well when I am at the shore. Deep breaths come naturally looking at the horizon. Calm breathing is easy when focusing on the organisms that – even in winter – call a tidepool home. Regular breathing follows the rhythm of waves as they race up the beach, fall back, and return again. 

The ocean takes a deep breath, too, at slack tide. Slack tide is when the speed of the current is zero; the energy of the incoming and outgoing water balances perfectly, and there is a pause. And then the tide turns again.  

Timing and duration of slack tide depends on multiple variables, including whether there are rivers meeting the tide, the shape of the shoreline, and the tidal range. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), among the many valuable products they provide, predicts and charts the timing of slack tide for multiple locations in Massachusetts. For my fellow nerds, below is a sample for a January tide at George’s Island, Boston Harbor.  

NOAA predictions of high tide and low tide current speed over a two-day span (red curve), and slack tide (blue line, at zero knots) on the southeastern shore of George’s Island, using Deer Island Light as a reference site. 

I invite you to make your way to the Massachusetts coast this winter for some breathing, and to prepare for the burst of field research, restoration work, and sample collection in the spring. And even if you can’t be there in person, you can take a cue from the slack tide, slow to zero knots, take a deep breath…Then get back to work with the tide. We need you! 

-- Pam DiBona, MassBays Director

Salem Sound Coastwatch’s Clean Beaches and Streams Program

Water samples are taken directly from a stormwater outfall pipe, at the beach, or a stream at low tide, before bacteria is diluted by the ocean water.

Dam Removal

Last November several staff from MassBays Regional Service Provider on Cape Cod, the Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC) shared 2024 results at the River Herring Network annual meeting in Weymouth, MA. The River Herring Network is a community of conservationists and managers collaborating to facilitate communication, strengthen community engagement, and ultimately increase the numbers of alewife and blueback herring in Massachusetts waters. MassBays was a founder of the Network, and continues to support herring monitoring across the Bays. 

Key results from 2024 Cape Cod river herring monitoring:

• Level of effort: More than 6,600 observations collected by morethan 500 volunteers across Cape Cod in 2024.
• The raw data: Over 54,000 returning herring were observed at 19 sites. A decline compared to 2023.
• Population Trend: The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries uses the raw data to calculate run size indices using a mathematical model. The model accounts for the number and timing of observations and provides a relative index of population trends over time. On Cape Cod six of the monitored runs experienced increases compared to 2023, however the median percent change across all runs was -28%, meaning an overall declines in 2024.
• Overall status: The 2024 herring run indices are below the long-term averages for most sites, indicative of depleted populations. The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) has a summary for 2024 state-wide herring status informed in part by volunteer counts.

Read the full article here.

River herring make their way up the Quashnet River in Mashpee on their way to the spawning habitat in Johns Pond. Graphic - Summary of the 2024 Cape Cod volunteer river herring sampling. Photo by APCC

Registration is open for the Gulf of Maine Monitoring & Research Symposium, hosted by MassBays, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, MIT Sea Grant, and the Northeast Regional Association for Coastal and Ocean Observing Systems. Join monitoring program coordinators and researchers, data-users and policymakers from across the Gulf of Maine to learn about ongoing efforts and plan new collaborations!

Registration fees through February 28 are $45 General and $25 Students.

Limited scholarships for travel and registration are available to those who might not be able to participate in the Symposium otherwise, including students, Tribal members, and volunteers for community-based monitoring groups.

Learn More and Register Here.

Salem Sound Coastwatch Underwater in Salem Sound Lectures: 

In person at the Marblehead Abbot Public Library, 235 Pleasant Street, Marblehead, MA 01945 on the third Wednesday of the month January – May from 7:00 – 8:30pm. 

• February 19, 2025: Environmental DNA and Biodiversity, Jennifer Polinski, Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute 
• March 19, 2025: Saving our Shoreline, Barbara Warren, Salem Sound Coastwatch   
• April 16, 2025: Wastewater Treatment for a Cleaner Environment, Dave Michelson, SESD – South Essex Sewerage District
• May 21, 2025: Black Sea Bass Climate Migration, Brian Cheng and Lisa Komoroske, UMass Amherst Gloucester Marine Station at Hodgkin's Cove

Attend either in person or virtually via Zoom. Register with the Abbot Library

For more information about individual lectures or questions, please visit salemsound.org.

River Herring Counting Workshop – March 12, 2025

The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries will host a workshop on March 12th in New Bedford. The workshop will discuss current river herring monitoring methods, explore the future of herring monitoring, and identify ways to improve the overall quality and usefulness of our monitoring data. For more information, please contact Brad Chase, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries at brad.chase@mass.gov.