Coastal residents by now have likely seen their fair share of reminders to prep for the 2026 hurricane season. But what about readying for life after a storm?

Dare County has a simulation for that.

The Dare County Department of Health and Human Services, Dare County Emergency Management and Trillium Health are hosting a post disaster response simulation to show what it’s like in the weeks following a disaster, including the challenges and hurdles residents often face.

This free event is open to all adults and high school students and is set for 9 a.m.-noon Thursday at Manteo First Assembly’s Connect Center, 812 Wingina Ave.

During the event, participants will be assigned different roles simulating real-life situations, such as a homeowner whose house was badly damaged and needs to work with their homeowners insurance, caring for an aging parent and needing to fill that parent’s prescription or accessing money from a bank, or someone who needs to relocate after discovering mold in their flooded home.

“No matter your experience level, we can all benefit from sharpening our preparedness skills — and this simulation makes learning both practical and fun,” Dare County DHHS Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Greta Sharp stated in a release. 

Similar simulations have been held in other North Carolina counties, offering residents and organizations an opportunity to build preparedness skills and increase empathy for people affected by emergencies. These simulations also highlight how post-storm life affects individuals living with mental illness, developmental disabilities, and/or substance use disorders.

“The post disaster simulation gives individuals the opportunity to learn and understand the daily struggles one may face following a disaster,” Dare County Social Services Division Director Chuck Lycett stated. “For organizations who provide resources, it gives them the opportunity to evaluate their level of customer service and ask ‘Are we creating more barriers for our citizens?'”

Interested participants may register online or on the day of the event, when registration and a light breakfast will begin at 8:30 a.m. Early registration is encouraged because space is limited.

For additional information, contact Sharp at 252-475-5073.

Fittingly, it was a Carolina blue sky that greeted University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee H. Roberts as he joined Institute of Marine Sciences researchers for a boat ride Tuesday morning to Cape Lookout National Seashore’s undeveloped barrier islands, a stark contrast to the celebratory gridlock on Franklin Street that the Orange County city can expect after a big win.

Roberts was in Carteret County to meet with faculty and students and learn more about their research at the lab in Morehead City, one of the handful of stops for the chancellor’s second summer tour this year in eastern North Carolina.

The first summer tour in 2025 covered the western part of the state. The 2026 tour began May 29 with two days at Fort Bragg. After Carteret County, he stopped in New Bern, UNC Pembroke, UNC Wilmington and the USS Battleship North Carolina.

Roberts told Coastal Review Tuesday afternoon from inside the institute that these tours are the university’s connection to the state, and its people are “the source of our strength at Carolina.”

Because most of the state’s people do not live in Chapel Hill, Roberts explained that “it’s important to get out around the state and see people where they live and work and see as many communities across the state as we can.”

Roberts continued that most communities don’t have a facility like this one, “where we’ve made a large investment for a for a long time, and so this has been a particularly important part of Carolina’s history, having the physical outpost here, but the work Carolina scientists and researchers are doing is in every nook and cranny of the state, trying to help move the state forward.”

His visit Tuesday included a tour of the lab with a small group, including area media, led by Institute of Marine Sciences Director Dr. Joel Fodrie, a professor in the Earth, marine and environmental sciences department.

Fodrie said that the institute is approaching its 80th year, and the existing building was built about 25 years ago to house research for environmental processes, like water quality, biogeochemistry and geology.

Throughout the tour, Roberts was able to observe research as it was happening and speak to the scientists as they analyzed microbiomes on the coast’s shark species, collected data on how much sediment flows downstream from inland waterbodies, and harvested seagrass seeds for large-scale seagrass restoration. Fodrie also made a point of introducing Roberts to the facilities and administration staff as well, highlighting their important role in keeping the the lab running smoothly.

During a pause by the office of Dr. Rick Luettich, former institute director, the alumni distinguished professor out of his office to talk about an ongoing flood data collection initiative called the Sunny Day Flooding Project.

Luettich said they’ve been working with people on campus, in city and regional planning, and with N.C. State University on the project that uses sensors installed in storm drains and ditches to record water levels.

Luettich pointed to the neighboring office where research specialist in physical oceanography Tony Whipple was building the sensors that measure in real time how “frequently flooding is occurring now, not when a big storm comes, but just when it’s a King Tide, or with sea level rise.”

Luettich said there are sensors in New Bern, Beaufort, Carolina Beach and Down East Carteret County, and there’s a website that shows in real time what the water levels are in these understudied areas.

“We haven’t been really paying attention to whether they flood, but we’re seeing that they flood very frequently, and more and more often as sea level’s rising. So really interesting collaborative project that we’re kind of right at ground zero for,” Luettich said.

On the second floor, UNC Institute for the Environment Director Dr. Michael Piehler paused working on what he called a “really cool experiment” looking at salinity intrusion in farms to chat with Roberts.

Piehler said the “experiment is working on a farm where salinity is coming in and seeing how that affects both the way that the farmers experience the soil and the way we see it as a processor of nutrients, so it’s just another great case of IMS being a beautiful thing.”

When Fodrie directed the group outside of the facility, he gestured to what looked like abstract sculptures with concrete-saturated rope as the medium.

He said these were different types of structures used to build living shorelines, and the university is collaborating with the companies that make these alternatives for hardened bulkheads and seawalls for shoreline restoration.

“We get to play a valuable role,” Fodrie said. “We’re engaging a lot of companies that are doing that to help them refine their projects and protect shorelines better, and in more environmentally friendly ways” he said about what he called the bourgeoning industry.

Fodrie also used the tour to show the chancellor existing needs at the research lab.

The outdoor experimental tanks are high on Fodrie’s list to be modernized and be more accessible to all students for experiments and research, and they’re looking to expand the 2,100-square-foot dormitory that sleeps about 20.

“We would love to have students here,” for the semester, Fodrie said from inside the cramped living space beside the lab, and want to expand the dorm to accommodate about 32 beds. “We have the footprint. We have the space” and plans have been drawn.

“Our grad students have had an increasingly hard time finding a place to live,” Fodrie said. They used to rent beachfront homes and “that game is over. So, we have a real housing crunch.”

In the past, students could pool their resources and together rent the larger beach houses for a reasonable amount, but the by-owner vacation business has priced the students out.  

In the shorter term, Fodrie said IMS is going to invest in turning the existing dorm into four apartments that sleep four each.

“We’re going to actually reduce capacity to 16,” and the apartments will be small, but they’ll be perhaps livable for a whole semester. That only gets us to 16 and we’re trying to get to 32. It’s a good short-term fix, but not a long-term solution,” Fodrie said.

Roberts told Coastal Review after his tour of the lab that the university has had a presence on the coast for 80 years, and “when you spend time here, you realize why. How important it is to undertake the kind of research that our scientists and faculty are pursuing.”

The coast is crucial to the state and to its future, from standpoint of fisheries and the environment, the research into sustainability, oyster farms, and dozens of other areas of research everywhere you look.

“We have 75 people here year-round. It’s a remarkable effort supported by the people of North Carolina, and, and for a good reason, because what’s happening here is integral to North Carolina’s future,” he said.

In a follow-up interview, Fodrie told Coastal Review that the facility serves as UNC’s vanguard for meeting challenges facing the coast, as well as for discovering solutions in focal areas that include coastal resilience, water quality, human health, and fisheries.

“Knowing how broad and diverse the chancellor’s responsibilities are, we are very gratified and appreciative that he would choose to visit the Institute to learn more about our ongoing efforts to serve North Carolina and also explore with us ways to expand our capacity in research and teaching/mentoring,” Fodrie said.

Roberts’ choice to visit the institute also highlights the unique and high-impact role that it has played in UNC’s mission over the last 80 years, since the institute was created, Fodrie continued.

“In this regard, one telling statistic we discussed related to the Impact Awards that UNC uses to recognize graduate students that conduct research focused on serving the needs of North Carolina,” Fodrie said, explaining that IMS-based graduate students represent less than 0.2% of all UNC graduate students during the last decade but represent about 14% of all award recipients over that same period.

“In turn, we also appreciated the chance to learn more about the chancellor’s broader goals and priorities for UNC during his team’s visit, and therefore how IMS might continue to grow our impact within and beyond the university.”  

Elizabeth City State University biology students have become the first researchers from a historically Black college or university to participate in the American Campus Tree Genome Project and have their work accepted into a worldwide genetic database.

The research on one of the oldest oak trees on campus is now publicly available through the National Center for Biotechnology Information, or NCBI, one of the world’s largest repositories of genetic information.  

HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a nonprofit research lab in Alabama, began the American Campus Tree Genomes initiative to provide students a way to interact with the latest genome sequencing technologies.

The project involved biological research students Nicole Villardi, Camdyn Peck, Laneya Evans, Zakiya Sledge, Nyaziah Sears, Justin Franklin, Juelle St. Clair and Angelina Sanchez, and Dr. Alex Harkess, Lauren Whitt and Sarah Carey, all with HudsonAlpha.

Margaret Young, professor of biology and faculty expert in plant tissue culture at Elizabeth City State, said Friday in the release that the project marked a significant milestone for both the university and the HBCU community.   

“We are the first HBCU to be part of the American Campus Tree Genome Project, part of Dr. Harkess’ National Science Foundation CAREER grant. This is the first time that we are sequencing/annotating a tree on this campus and having the data readily available on NCBI,” Young said.   

Students collected leaves from an oak tree near the G.R. Little Library on campus and extracted high-quality DNA that was sent to HudsonAlpha for sequencing. Researchers returned the data to the university for the students to analyze before submitting the completed work to NCBI. The research is now available on the international database.

Young said each step of the process required a level of precision and expertise that is uncommon for undergraduate researchers.   

“We were praised by Dr. Harkess. Plant DNA can be difficult to extract due to the tough cell walls and the fact that plants store their waste and have secondary compounds in their cells,” she said.   

Unlike traditional laboratory courses, where experiments are often completed within a few hours, this project took an investment of several days.

“Extracting the DNA took several tries, about 8 hours each from start to finish. This would not work in a traditional lab setting, which is two to three hours,” Young said. “Annotating also took several hours. Luckily, the students had done Computer Programming and could figure out the coding when there were hiccups. Dr. Harkess’s staff also helped polish the data. In a course such as Biological Research, there is a lot of latitude—defined meeting times, plus meeting times each week the students decide upon, which makes it ideal for such a project.”   

Dr. Jared Bowden wanted to be the man you tuned your television to each day for a weather update.

His sole aspiration when he stepped onto the campus of North Carolina State University as a freshman in the mid-1990s was to become a broadcast meteorologist.

Today, that dream is but a fading memory for the Rocky Mount native who was recently named director of the North Carolina State Climate Office. Bowden’s new post became effective May 1.

That title, and the responsibilities that come with it, bring full-circle his passion for climate research, his love for his home state, and his desire to educate and serve his fellow North Carolinians.

“I take it very seriously that I want to do things to benefit our state,” Bowden, 47, said in a recent telephone interview. “What I love about this job is that it’s a public service center, so I’m serving the public and I’m trying to help the public with their problems related to climate.”

The State Climate Office is North Carolina’s leading scientific partner for understanding weather, climate, and atmospheric data. Its mission is to deliver climate-related services to local governments, state and federal agencies and businesses and residents.

The office was established in 1976 and originally housed at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In 1980, the office was relocated roughly 25 miles east from the Tarheels’ campus to the home of the Wolfpack, Bowden’s three-time alma mater.

Bowden was about 2 years old at the time, toddling around in his parents’ house where his father, Donald Bowden, was presumably already kindling his oldest son’s desire to pursue a career in weather meteorology.

Up until his dad’s death in November, “everyone considered him the weatherman of the family despite me having the degree,” Bowden later wrote of his father in an email.

Bowden earned bachelor’s degrees in meteorology and marine sciences at the end of an academic year that, about a month into its beginning, exposed him and thousands of fellow eastern North Carolinians to one of the most destructive hurricanes in the state’s history.

After making landfall near Wilmington in September 1999, Hurricane Floyd dumped rain for more than 60 consecutive hours in some areas of eastern North Carolina, where just 10 days earlier rain from Tropical Storm Dennis had inundated waterways and saturated soil.

Bowden vividly recalls seeing rescue crews — swift water rescue teams and helicopters — temporarily stage in an area that was a short two-minute walk from his parent’s home near Stony Creek, a picturesque stream that converges with the Tar River.

His childhood home was ultimately spared from flooding, but his hometown would be changed forever.

The Tar River crested at more than 31 feet in Rocky Mount, where flooding claimed lives, wiped out local businesses and homes, and damaged Tarrytown Mall, eastern North Carolina’s first enclosed shopping mall, beyond repair.

“It was really an eye-opening experience to be honest with you,” Bowden said. “People that have experienced this type of flooding know firsthand of how devastating it is and it’s not just you, but also the broader community that’s impacted.”

That experience instilled in Bowden a drive to better understand extreme weather.

His senior year at State would be one where, as he put it, he got “sucked into the research world.” There, he discovered he was particularly good at atmospheric modeling.

Bowden went on to earn a master’s and doctorate in atmospheric science, landing a job as a postdoctoral researcher at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Research Triangle Park office, where he worked with “some of the best atmospheric modelers in the world.”

From there, he settled into a world of research related to atmospheric modeling, eventually accepting a job as a research assistant professor at UNC Chapel Hill.

“But that kind of took me away a little bit from my passion of climate,” Bowden said.

When the position of associate director opened up at the State Climate Office in 2024, he applied for the job, one that would get him back to not only his love of climate research, but climate research specific to his home state.

Bowden was named interim director of the State Climate Office in August 2025 following former director Kathie Dello’s departure to become the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s assistant secretary for resilience.

The North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resilinecy was established in the fall of 2018 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, a storm that dumped more than 35 inches of rain in parts of eastern North Carolina and racked up an estimated $22 billion in damages in the state.

“We’ve seen quite a number of events over the years, and even in Rocky Mount there’s been events that haven’t been related to tropical systems that have created some really big flood problems,” Bowden said. “I didn’t see those types of things growing up. It is what I would say is a new normal that eastern North Carolinians are facing. But, as you know now, no place is safe within our state. From the mountains to the coast, everybody’s experienced something.”

Portions of western North Carolina continue to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm that made landfall at Florida’s Big Bend and swept north. Wind and rain generated from the storm claimed the lives of more than 100 North Carolinians and caused an estimated $78.7 billion worth of damage.

Within just the last decade, the state experienced its hottest year on record in 2019. Last year, more than 5,000 heat-related emergency room visits were reported in North Carolina.

As of May 19, more than half of the state’s 100 counties are experiencing extreme drought. Most of the 20 coastal counties are under severe drought.

“The pendulum is swinging much more aggressively both ways and that’s what our state has to be prepared for,” Bowden said. “We have to work closely with our partners, we have to reach out to various groups to understand what those challenges are so that we’re able to serve them better.”

The office, which is comprised of 10 staff, is in the process of creating HANC, or Heat Atlas for North Carolina.

“It looks at, if you were to think about a hundred-year, three-day heatwave, what would that temperature be for your locations,” Bowden said. “That’s something I’m really excited about and we’re thinking about how to extend it to a broader footprint into South Carolina and possibly Georgia.”

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust is hosting its 16th annual Flytrap Frolic on Saturday, June 6, in Wilmington.

Participants of the free event will receive an education on the types of carnivorous plants that grow in southeastern North Carolina, why they grow there, and how they trap their prey.

The event will be held 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. at the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden, 3800 Canterbury Road, where garden guides will help guests find carnivorous plants in the garden and answer questions.

There will be carnivorous plant-themed games, arts and crafts, and face painters, educational tables with partners from Halyburton Park, Carolina Beach State Park, The North American Sarracenia Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy.

A limited number of ethically sourced flytraps will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis to benefit the Coastal Land Trust.

Anyone who would like to volunteer at the event may sign up online.

Matthew Godfrey, a sea turtle conservationist with extensive experience in several regions, is the the featured guest this month for the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s “Green Drinks” speaker series in Morehead City.

This month’s session is set for 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 28, on the third floor of Jack’s on the Waterfront at 513 Evans St.

The casual monthly gathering for people who care about the North Carolina coast is hosted by the Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review.

“Whether you enjoy boating, beach days, or simply want to keep our waters clean and our communities strong, this is a relaxed space to connect with others, hear from local voices, and stay up to date on important coastal topics,” according to organizers.

Godfrey began working in North Carolina in 2002, after being hired by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to coordinate the North Carolina Sea Turtle Project. Since then, he has played a key role in monitoring and protecting sea turtle populations along the state’s coast.

Godfrey will give an overview of sea turtle nesting and nest protection in the state, highlighting some of the joys and challenges associated with sea turtle conservation along North Carolina’s coast.

Grab a drink from the bar and join the conversation. These events are free and open to the public, however registration is strongly encouraged.

Dr. Reide Corbett, executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus in Wanchese, is the featured lecturer this month at the institute’s “Science on the Sound” lecture series.

The public is encouraged to attend Corbett’s lecture, “Holding the Line? Coastal Change and Barrier-Island Dynamics on the Outer Banks.” The program is set for 6 p.m. May 28 at the institute and there’s no charge to attend.

From collapsing oceanfront homes to repeated beach nourishment projects, coastal change is becoming increasingly visible across the Outer Banks. But what do these changes reveal about how barrier islands function — and how different management approaches interact with these naturally dynamic systems?

Corbett will discuss the science behind erosion, storms, overwash, sediment transport, and sea level rise, while exploring how shoreline management strategies influence beaches, infrastructure, and long-term resilience.

“Rather than focusing on simple solutions, the discussion will examine the tradeoffs, time horizons, and challenges associated with managing development on a constantly changing coast,” organizers said in their announcement.

Whether you work in coastal science, policy, planning, or simply care deeply about the Outer Banks, this presentation offers an opportunity to better understand the processes shaping one of the most dynamic shorelines on the East Coast.

The program will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

Corbett is a coastal oceanographer and geochemist whose work focuses on coastal change, sediment dynamics, shoreline processes, and the geomorphic evolution of barrier island systems.

Born and reared on the North Carolina coast, he earned his bachelor’s in chemistry and his master’s and doctorate in chemical oceanography from Florida State University before beginning his academic career at Tulane University in New Orleans. He later returned to North Carolina to join ECU, where he serves as dean of Integrated Coastal Programs, executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute, and professor in the Department of Coastal Studies.

Corbett’s research examines the dynamic interface between land and sea, from estuaries and continental shelves to barrier islands and polar coastlines. His work has taken him from North Carolina and Puerto Rico to New Zealand and Antarctica, with a particular focus on how storms, sea level rise, sediment movement, human activity, and long-term geologic processes shape coastal environments. Through the lens of North Carolina’s coast, he helps communities better understand shoreline change, barrier island evolution, and the choices needed to adapt to a changing coastal future, organizers said.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation announced this week that Dr. Lela Schlenker has the nonprofit organization as its new coastal advocate for northeastern part of the state.

Schlenker comes to the Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review, most recently from Avangrid Renewables, where she led the fisheries team across the company’s U.S. offshore wind projects and focused on communicating with fishing communities, identifying research needs, and coordinating marine policy.

Schlenker is a fisheries ecologist with a research career spanning topics such as the effect of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on mahi-mahi, how climate and weather affect North Carolina shrimp populations, and the impact of catch-and-release fishing practices on white marlin. Throughout her career, she has worked closely with fishing communities along the U.S. coastline, building strong and collaborative partnerships. 

“We’re excited to have Lela join our team. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience on coastal issues,” explained Coastal Management Program Director Kerri Allen. “Lela is joining us at a time when there are several major issues facing the Outer Banks region, including threatened oceanfront structures, ongoing water quality concerns, increased pressure to lift hardened shoreline restrictions, and the growing need for long-term coastal resilience planning. Her scientific background, policy experience, and collaborative approach will be a tremendous asset for both the Federation and the coastal communities we serve.” 

Schlenker has an undergraduate degree from Smith College, a master’s from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and a doctorate in marine biology and ecology from the University of Miami.

Schlenker says that her career path was inspired by both a strong conservation ethic and an undergraduate research project in which she sampled fish aboard a commercial trawling vessel. 

“I am really looking forward to connecting with the community as well as working with managers, scientists, and policy makers to continue the great work the Coastal Federation has done and find new ways to protect beautiful coastal North Carolina,” said Schlenker. 

Schlenker started with the Coastal Federation on May 5 and will be based out of the office in Wanchese.

She has been delighted to call the Outer Banks home since 2020. In her spare time, she enjoys finding ways to be on, in, or near the water and growing as much butternut squash as possible in her garden.  

Ms. Doris Creecy has been a familiar face to locals on Roanoke Island for a long time.

This 90-year-old “Senior Delight,” the official title she is called by one of the several organizations she supports, is known by many. She is a frequent presence at events, especially programs close to her heart and those that include youth.

Standing tall, typically wearing a beautiful hat, a colorful outfit, and with cane in hand, this elegant lady cannot easily be missed. She and her daughter, Coquetta Laverna Conyers Brooks, are frequently seen. They are an often-noted twosome at community, church, and school events,

Ms. Creecy is not letting her age slow her down. She is always ready to encounter new experiences, learn more, and to talk about history, a topic she loves.

Born Aug. 1, 1935, in Wilmington, and a graduate of Clifton University in South Carolina, she was licensed to teach in four states: South Carolina, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina. On Roanoke Island, where she moved after teaching in Wilmington, she taught third and fourth grade students and served as a reading specialist at Manteo Elementary School from 1977 to 1990.

Thousands she taught in her lifetime have become educators, entrepreneurs, first-time homeowners, musicians, pastors, nurses, fishermen and so much more. The pivotal role Black educators played in Wilmington and the surrounding area during challenging historical times influenced her decision to teach.

She is a lifelong and proud member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. (AKSA) the first intercollegiate historical Black sorority. She has been a former board member of several organizations, including presently serving as an honorary board member for our organization, the Pea Island Preservation Society Inc.

Ms. Creecy can most easily be found at church each Sunday morning, sitting faithfully in her favored spot, front-row pew and left side of the sanctuary at Haven Creek Missionary Baptist Church. There she serves as a deaconess and as a Sunday school and vacation Bible school teacher.

This church is connected to the story of the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island, where thousands sought freedom and a safe haven during the Civil War. Her faith and love of God have always been primary in her life and teachings.

Ms. Creecy is perhaps best known as the founder of the Echoes of Heritage, or the shortened Echoes they are called, an a cappella singing group she formed shortly after moving to Roanoke Island. She is the directress and leader of the group.

Originally 12 singers, the Echoes have had three different sets of singers over time. Over the years they have performed at countless events under her guidance.

Ms. Creecy is the heart and soul of the group known for singing spiritual songs. Once she and a singing partner even had a regular Tuesday spot on a local radio station. Although the Echoes are not as active or big in number as in the past, still today at 90 years old, Ms. Creecy continues to receive requests to perform.

Today she and her daughter Coquetta, typically with two, three or four additional singers, occasionally delight audiences at selected events with spiritual songs. In recent years, they have performed at several events. This includes events held at the College of the Albemarle – Dare campus and other locations for programs sponsored by our organization, Dare County, and the Town of Manteo. Many of the programs she attends result in her warmly greeting adults who were former students.

As a born educator, she especially enjoys sharing her own experiences, including the joys, challenges and difficulties she faced as part of her own personal journey.

In recent years she and her accompanists have performed at three of our five annual Juneteenth “Sounds of Freedom” celebrations held at the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum, where the story of Keeper Richard Etheridge and the surfmen he commanded at the historic Pea Island Life-saving Station is told.

Ms. Creecy is a devoted supporter, always ready to raise awareness of this history. On several occasions theEchoeshave performed at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Day celebration held on Roanoke Island.

These events are two of her favorites. Seeing and watching her so passionately sing songs that serve as living history and which reflect her own personal journey is touching. It is also an important reminder of how the music inspires and unites.

Past members of the Echoeshave included many with roots on Roanoke Island. The late Dellerva Collins, who served as mayor pro tem and as a Manteo town commissioner for years, was part of the original 12. Likewise, the late Virginia Tillett and Naomi Augusta Collins, both pioneering community leaders and educators on Roanoke Island, sang with the Echoes.

Images showing women joyfully singing along with her who were known advocates for voices most often not seen or heard. Several through the years, past and present, are the descendants of those who lived on the Freedmen’s Colony or who are part of Ms. Creecy’s beloved church community.

When asked the most important lesson her mother has taught her, Coquetta quickly says, “to choose kindness always in spite of others.”

Her son Damian, a Manteo High School and Elizabeth City State University graduate, and who currently is pursuing a master’s in the computer engineering field, is someone Ms. Creecy is especially proud of.  She and her grandson are very, very close, Coquetta adds. 

When asked what lesson his grandmother has most taught him, Damian says, “never remain stagnant and to pursue improvement daily,” two lessons that also reflect the guidance Ms. Creecy has passed along to her many students over the years.

All are encouraged to help celebrate Mother’s Day this year by sending Ms. Creecy (or Ms. Pledger as some know her by her late husband’s last name) a special card. She has no idea of this request so please also help us to keep it a surprise! Without a doubt, the avid reader she continues to be, she will greatly enjoy reading these special cards on Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day or any greetings may be sent to: Mrs. Doris Creecy, P.O. Box 1068, Manteo, NC 27954.

Paddle back in time and experience the historically rich area along Moores Creek, a slow-moving blackwater situated along an 88-acre national park that commemorates the Revolutionary War.

Cape Fear River Watch and Moores Creek National Battlefield invite participants to join in a roughly 2.5-mile, out-and-back paddle on May 16 in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary.

The trip will offer an experience of the creek as it was in 1776, beginning at the battlefield, passing under a historic bridge, and then into untouched cypress swamps.

Moores Creek flows into the Black River, a major tributary of the Cape Fear River.

The paddle will be followed by lunch (bring your own) in the park where, afterward, a park ranger will take participants on an exclusive history tour.

Moores Creek National Battlefield commemorates the Feb. 27, 1776 battle between Patriots and Loyalist militia. The national park in Pender County is where the Patriots won their first major victory.

Those interested in the paddle may register online.

Cape Fear River Watch has a limited number of boats (single kayaks) available and asks for a donation of $25 per boat, including personal flotation device and paddle. If you prefer to use one of the organization’s kayaks, indicate that when you register.

Anyone who prefers to paddle in a tandem kayak may make that request to Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette prior to registering for the paddle at kemp@cfrw.us.

Paddlers who bring their own kayaks are asked to contribute a $10 donation either online when registering or by cash or check the day of the paddle. Donations help cover the costs of Cape Fear River Watch programs, including its paddle series, water quality monitoring, and educational seminars.

Participants should meet at the Moores Creek National Battlefield Patriots Hall parking lot no later than 8:30 a.m.

Paddlers are encouraged to bring snack and lunch, sunscreen, bug spray, sunglasses, hat, and water shoes.

Those who register should check their email the night before and the morning of the paddle to make sure the event has not been canceled.

The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management is now accepting reservations for a series of free-of-charge public field trips this summer to the Rachel Carson Reserve in Beaufort.

Beginning in June, two types of field trips will be offered on the Reserve, including nature hikes, which will occur during low tides when the most land on the island is exposed.

Participants of these hikes must wear close-toed shoes to protect their feet from the abundance of oysters, specifically their sharp-edged shells. Make sure your footwear is suitable for wet, muddy conditions. And, if you desire to wade in the water on the hike if given that opportunity, dress accordingly.

For those who prefer a little drier ground, the division is also hosting boardwalk trips, which will take you down Taylor’s Creek to the boardwalk on Carrot Island. Close-toed shoes are required for these trips as well.

Field trips have been scheduled as follows:

• June 16 — Boardwalk trip.
• June 23 — Nature hike trip.
• June 30 — Boardwalk trip.
• July 7 — Nature hike trip.
• July 16 — Boardwalk trip.
• July 23 — Nature hike trip.
• July 30 — Boardwalk trip.
• Aug. 6 — Nature hike trip.
• Aug. 13 — Boardwalk trip.
• Aug. 18 — Nature hike trip.

Boats will depart from Pivers Island in Beaufort.

Participants must be at least 4 years old and all are encouraged to bring sunglasses, hats, binoculars, water, and sunscreen.

For additional information or help making an online reservation call 252-515-5426. If you leave a voicemail, expect a return call within 24 hours.

To join a waitlist if a trip is full, you may call the number above or email staff at lori.c.davis@deq.nc.gov.

While these field trips are free, donations are accepted for the nonprofit organization Friends of the Reserve  by PayPal.

Part of an ongoing series on North Carolina’s observance of America’s 250th.

When Halifax was founded in 1760 on the south bank of the Roanoke River, the town became a thriving commercial and social hub, largely because of its access to the Albemarle Sound, but as the American Revolution took hold in the 1770s, the town found itself at the epicenter of North Carolina’s move from British rule to independence.

North Carolina’s Fourth Provincial Congress met in Halifax in the spring of 1776, when delegates from across the colony unanimously adopted a document recommending freedom from England that was later called the “Halifax Resolves,” according to state historians.

“North Carolina played a significant role in winning America’s independence,” Gov. Josh Stein said in a statement. “The creation and adoption of the Halifax Resolves on April 12, 1776 was the first official action by any colony calling for independence from Great Britain, forever cementing North Carolina’s place in history as ‘First in Freedom.’”

The state will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the document with “Prelude to Revolution: Halifax Resolves Days,” at the Historic Halifax State Historic Site in Halifax County.

Scheduled for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday, there will be living history vignettes, lectures, live colonial music, Tryon Palace Fife and Drum Corps performances, historic trades and weapons demonstrations, a military parade, food trucks, vendors, exhibits, tours and themed photo booths.

The site, which holds a smaller-scale observation each year in April, features several authentically restored and furnished buildings including the 1838 Jail, the 1790 Eagle Tavern and the Underground Railroad Trail. 

Halifax Resolves Days is a signature event for America 250 NC, the state’s official initiative led by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and celebrate the state’s role in the American Revolution.

Signature events like this “honor our state’s pivotal role in shaping the American story. From historic reenactments to cultural festivals, these events will inspire, educate, and unite communities across the state.”

N.C. Department of Natural & Cultural Resources Assistant Communications Director Michele Walker told Coastal Review that some event highlights include a ceremony with the state-recognized Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, a living history reenactment of the Provincial delegates debating independence, the annual Halifax Resolves Day Ceremony April 12 at the colonial courthouse site, and live music and a drone show at dark on King Street.

A full schedule is available on the event website.

As part of “Halifax Resolves Days,” the state will officially open Historic Halifax State Historic Site’s newly renovated visitor center at 25 St. David St., “unveiling a modern facility and a new exhibit detailing Halifax’s significant role in the state’s history,” according to the release.

Starting Friday and continuing through Oct. 6, visitors to the center will have the unique opportunity to view the Halifax Resolves document on loan from the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

This is the first time the Resolves document – the only known copy to exist — is believed to be returning to Halifax since it was sent to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776. The State Archives of North Carolina holds the journal copy of the Resolves that will be displayed in Halifax this fall, the state said.

“The opportunity to view this 250-year-old document in the place where it was created is a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience,” N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Secretary Pamela B. Cashwell said in a statement. “The Halifax Resolves is one of the most important pieces of our state’s story — its date is emblazoned on our state flag — and we’re so excited for North Carolinians to see it in person.”

Halifax’s role in the American Revolution

The Roanoke River, which is one of the five largest rivers in the Southeast that flows from the foothills of the Appalachian into the Atlantic Ocean, begins in Montgomery County, Virginia, enters North Carolina in Warren County and flows through Halifax, Northampton, Bertie, Martin, Washington counties, before emptying into Batchelor’s Bay of Albemarle Sound, according to state documents.

English colonists from Virginia in the early 18^th century settled in the Roanoke River Valley and began farming the fertile land. In the following decades, a plantation system evolved that relied on slave labor to grow wheat, corn, peas, tobacco, and other staple crops for markets outside of the colony.

At the behest of the merchants, Halifax was founded in 1757 to use to their advantage the river’s access to the Albemarle Sound and its ports. Though a smallpox epidemic in 1758 stalled settlement, the town was settled in 1760 as the seat of Halifax County, which was designated Jan. 1, 1759. There were nearly 60 houses and public buildings at the time.

“This new town was at a major crossroads between North-South trading paths between the American colonies and West-East trading paths between the coast and the interior of the state. With this advantage, the small town quickly became a major trading center and river port for good moving between the backcountry, the plantations, and Virginia,” the state continues.

Not long after, the town became the backdrop for monumental political events during the American Revolution.

After the patriot victory Feb. 28, 1776, at Moores Creek Bridge in Pender County, the battle that effectively ended British rule in the colony, 83 delegates met in Halifax April 4, 1776, for the Fourth Provincial Congress of North Carolina.

Related: Rainy remembrance marks Revolution’s first decisive win

The delegates unanimously adopted on April 12, 1776, the document now called the “Halifax Resolves.”

“The Halifax Resolves were the first official action by any of the 13 colonies to call for independence from Great Britain. It is acknowledged as an important precursor to the Declaration of Independence,” Walker told Coastal Review.

The document gave William Hooper, Joseph Hewes and John Penn, the state’s representatives to the Second Continental Congress, authority to vote for independence. The Second Continental Congress was the governing body for the colonial governments that coordinated resistance to British rule during the American Revolution.

The Fourth Provincial Congress adjourned on May 15, 1776, after appointing a single Council of Safety to rule the entire colony. While the council was meeting in Halifax on July 22, 1776, the group learned that the Declaration of Independence had been signed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

“The council adopted a resolution declaring North Carolinians ‘absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown’,” according to the historic site’s webpage.

Cornelius Harnett, a resident and Revolutionary patriot, was selected for the North Carolina’s first public reading of the Declaration of Independence to the town of Halifax Aug. 1, 1776.

The Fifth Provincial Congress assembled in Halifax that November, and by Dec. 18, the delegation had approved the new state’s first constitution. As its last official act Dec. 23, 1776, the congress appointed Richard Caswell as the first governor of the State of North Carolina.

“This one small town of Halifax saw the adoption for national independence, the first state constitution and the election of the first governor after colonial rule. Clearly Halifax was a front runner for the independence movement in not only North Carolina, but the entire nation as well,” according to the site.

Walker said that this was the state’s big moment in Revolutionary history, and Historic Halifax State Historic Site preserves this important action for all North Carolinians.

Visitor center renovation

Division of State Historic Sites Public Information Officer Terra Schramm told Coastal Review that in 1976, during the nation’s Bicentennial, this visitor center first opened its doors to welcome guests to Historic Halifax State Historic Site, which was established in 1965.

The North Carolina General Assembly appropriated $5.2 million to renovate the visitor center in 2022 and to complete the restoration of the William R. Davie House, a part of the historic site, in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary this year, she continued.

“The renovation of this building is now complete the interior has been thoroughly replaced, new climate control systems installed, the building foundation sealed, a clerestory added to light the lobby, and the conditioned interior space expanded from 4,900 square feet to just over 6,000 square feet,” Schramm said.

Of note, is a specially designed document display case that has been built to meet security and environmental control standards outlined by the National Archives and Records Administration.

“The case will be used to exhibit a rotation of significant historical documents, starting (appropriately) with the Halifax Resolves,” Schramm explained in her email response.

Clearscapes of Raleigh was hired to design and oversee the work, with Calvin Davinport Inc. of Rocky Mount serving as the general contractor. New historical exhibits for the building were designed by Design Dimensions of Raleigh, she said.

And, we’re live!

With the expected hatch date just around the corner, the public now has 24-hour access to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission’s live cam, with audio, for Barn Owlet Watch 2026.

Watch all the action inside a nest box that’s housing six barn owl eggs for a chance to welcome hatchlings into the world sometime April 8-15.

“The Barn Owl Live Cam is our newest conservation adventure,” Wildlife Resources Commission Education Development and Evaluation Supervisor Sydney Brown stated in a release. “What began as a dream quickly grew, thanks to our incredible internal partners, into a 24/7 window into the secret life of barn owls for North Carolinians who may never see these birds in their own backyards.”

The nesting pair closely guarding their eggs are believed to have previously used the nest box the agency installed in western North Carolina in 2011.

After the pair returned to the nest last December, the female laid the first of her six eggs March 11.

Commission Conservation Biologist Joe Tomcho estimates the first egg will hatch April 12, based on a normal 32-day incubation period, according to the release.

“Usually once the first egg hatches, the others start hatching at about an every-other-day timeframe,” Tomcho said. “Barn owls typically lay around four to five eggs. Six eggs is an indication these are an experienced pair. It’s a really exciting experience to watch them hatch, but then to also watch them hop around in the nest as they prepare for life outside the nest.”

The nest box has been used by barn owls six times in the past 16 years, possibly by the same nesting pair, according to the WRC.

Man-made nesting boxes allow biologist to study nesting behavior, chick development and the species’ seasonal patterns.

In some regions of the state, the barn owl population has declined as a result of habitat loss and some agricultural practices. Barn owls are in the the commission’s Wildlife Action Plan, a comprehensive planning tool the agency developed to help conserve and enhance the state’s full array of fish and wildlife species and their habitats.

Solar-powered live cameras were installed at the nest box in August of last year “and, so far, have operated steadily since December with minimal interruptions,” the release states.

This is the commission’s first live camera experience, but officials hope to offer more in the future.

“We’re excited to keep expanding this project with fun educational content, conservation updates and plenty of owl magic,” Brown said in the release. “And we assure the public that owls are completely wild. We do not intervene or interfere with their natural behaviors or nesting process.”

Contact the commission’s wild observer program for more information about barn owls and nest boxes.

Additional information about barn owls is available on the agency’s website.

The inaugural Wilmington Community Science Fest this Saturday aims to bring together the wide array of community science activities offered in the region for people to explore.

Festivalgoers can pop into lectures explaining the concept and importance of citizen science and hear about some of the more popular area projects, such as iNaturalist and eBird, and make the rounds between exhibitors who will explain how to connect with local community science efforts.

The first presentation, from 10:15 until 11:15 a.m., will cover the importance of community science, featuring Katie Kingston, Science Across North Carolina, and Sammy Calderon, who will provide an introduction to using iNaturalist.

The next presentation, held from 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., will include Kristen Holloman-Noe, who will present on FrogWatch USA, and Mason Randolph, who will provide an introduction to using eBird.

The final presentation, Journey Through Participatory Sciences, will be held from 12:45 until 1:45 p.m. and feature presenter Dr. Caren Cooper, who will share her firsthand experience in participatory sciences as a researcher and an instructor.

“Knowing that researching opportunities requires time and patience, we hatched the idea of creating one event where interested parties could browse projects and instantly move from wanting to participate straight into registering to participate,” Holloman-Noe, Fort Fisher Aquarium outreach coordinator and FrogWatch USA regional coordinator, stated in a release. “The support and enthusiasm we’ve witnessed in planning this event has truly warmed my heart.”

The festival is scheduled for 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Davis Center in Wilmington Maides Park, 1101 Manly Ave.

The event will include a number other headliners, such as Science Across NC, EcoExplore and Project Explore, Terrapin Talley of the N.C. Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve and N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, N.C. Audubon shorebird surveys, Cape Fear Audubon and the University of North Carolina Wilmington Marine Mammal Stranding Program.

Volunteers will be there to help direct participants to the projects that interest them most.

Wilmington Community Science Fest is being hosted by the Fort Fisher Aquarium, Valerie Robertson, publisher of Cape Fear’s Going Green, and Savannah Lytle, North Carolina Environmental Education Certification candidate.

Fort Fisher historian Becky Sawyer will share the gritty history of tattoos that adorned sailors who fought in the 1865 battle that ended with the capture of the last open port in North Carolina and the Confederacy.

Sawyer will dive into the results of five years of research on tattoos worn by the sailors who participated in the Battle of Fort Fisher during a presentation entitled “Red, Blue & Black Tattoos Among Sailors at Fort Fisher.” The event is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the New Hanover County Public Library’s main library at 230 Grace St. in Wilmington.

Through images and stories, Sawyer will “explore this fascinating and sometimes gritty aspect of maritime history. Not for the faint of heart,” according to the library.

In mid-January 1865, joint Army and Navy forces commanded by Union Rear Adm. David D. Porter and Maj. Gen. Alfred Terry attacked and captured the fort situated at the mouth of the Cape Fear River at the Atlantic Ocean.

Whether its a nature hike, a stormwater tour at North Carolina’s premiere coastal university, or helping a town’s staff permanently mark storm drains, there’s something for nearly everyone during Cape Fear Creek Week.

Creek Week kicks off on Sunday and goes through March 21, offering opportunities to connect with, celebrate, and care for local waterways of the Cape Fear Region.

Throughout the week, participants are invited to play Cape Fear Creek Week virtual bingo by completing activities for a chance to win a swag bag.

The events lineup starts Sunday with a birding walk from 10-11 a.m. in Leland, where participants will be given tips on how to identify local and migrating birds. Registration for this event is through the town of Leland.

On Monday, gather beneath cypress trees in Wallace Park at 2110 Market St. in Wilmington for a scavenger hunt from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. The Alliance for Cape Fear Trees will have resources on hand to share tips on how to properly plant and care for trees.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington is hosting that afternoon a behind-the-scenes tour of its stormwater-control measures, including rain gardens, permeable pavement systems and other sustainable features that reduce runoff and support healthier waterways. This event will be held 2-3 p.m. Monday at 4935 Riegel Road. Registration is required.

On Monday evening, discover ways to diagnose and restore wetland habitats through Habitat Fixer Uppers with Fort Fisher Aquarium, a program scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. at 1212 Magnolia Village Way in Leland. You may register here.

Tuesday, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority will host a tour of its Southside Water Reclamation Facility, 3436 River Road in Wilmington. Registered participants must be age 5 or older.

Events for Wednesday include a bird hike at Burnt Mill Creek 8-9:30 a.m., an opportunity to work alongside employees of Leland’s engineering department 4-5:30 p.m. to permanently mark the town’s storm drains, a children’s scavenger hunt 5-6 p.m. at Cypress Cover Park in Leland, and resilient coastal communities program public meeting drop in between 5p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Skyline Center in downtown Wilmington.

Events later in the week include a golden hour guided tour by paddleboat in Greenfield Lake Park, a walking tour at Pages Creek, a sustainability brewery tour at Mad Mole Brewing (for those 21 and older), a Brunswick Nature Park tour in Winnabow, and a cleanup at Greenfield Lake Park.

Details, including all dates, times and locations, are available on the N.C. Cooperative Extension website.

Cape Fear Creek Week is a collaboration between the N.C. Cooperative Extension, Wilmington’s Heal our Waterways, Leland, Cape Fear River Watch, New Hanover County Soil and Water Conservation District, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Coastal Land Trust, Cape Fear Birding Observatory, Plastic Ocean Project, Mad Mole Brewery, UNCW Sustainability, and Alliance for Cape Fear Trees.

Across from the Pleasant Plains Baptist Church and just outside of Winton in Hertford County, it remained unclear for years whether the historic but badly damaged Rosenwald Pleasant Plains School built in 1920 could be saved.

If it could not, the school building, which replaced an earlier structure built on the grounds in 1866 that may have been the first “Colored” school in Hertford County, would probably be lost.

And then, in September 2024, a driver ran their car off U.S. 13 where the school is, and slammed it into the building with such force that the entire structure was moved off its foundation. The driver was drunk at the time.

With the one corner of the building crushed, the school off its stone foundation, and brick and other debris littering the inside, things looked bleak for the building that the National Register of Historic Places described in a 2016 report “as the only graded public school that served both local African American and Native American students in the Pleasant Plains community … from 1920 to 1950.”

As the report notes, the building was “a very intact, representative example of early twentieth-century rural school design.”

Yet what at first seemed like a disaster, may ultimately have saved the building. The insurance settlement was enough put the structure back on its foundation, repair the roof and exterior and paint the building.

There is, though, still work to be done.

Even before the accident, the roof had been leaking, and a new roof “stopped the problem with the leaks,” Roy Pierce said, who has been monitoring the condition of the school and handling repairs for years. “But before that took place, there were some leaks around those old chimneys, and the water seeped in and damaged some of the wooden ceiling.”

The ceiling needs repair, but it is just one of a number of problems pushing the cost of bringing the building back beyond the means of the Pleasant Plains Church, which owns the building and property.

Pierce pointed to the windows that have been boarded up to prevent vandalism. He explained that when restoration experts looked at the windows, he was told much of the glass was original, as were the frames.

“The estimate on just fixing those windows, was $17,000,” he said.

The land where the school rests has always been owned by the Pleasant Plains Church. The church, founded in 1851, is one of the oldest multiracial houses of worship in North Carolina. When founded, the church was for the nonwhite, free people of color only.

“Permission was granted to organize a church provided no slaves nor their descendants were allowed to join the church. The church was to be solely for the use of free-born people,” Corinne Hare Brummell wrote in Pleasant Plains Baptist Church 150th Anniversary Program in 2001.

At that time, and well into the 20th century, a person of color was anyone who was Black, African American or of mixed ancestry.

It is possible that there was a school associated with the church as early as the 1850s, but early church records were destroyed in a 1941 fire. It is known, however, that as early as 1866 “ten men were responsible for building a school house at Pleasant Plains,” the Hertford County Herald wrote recounting the history of Hertford County.

The first school house was one room, and “the only elementary school accessible to people of color, including African Americans and the descendants of Native Americans, in the Pleasant Plains community,” the National Register of Historic Places notes.

By the turn of the 20th century, it was clear a one-room school house was inadequate and in 1902, the county approved $90 “for the school with a total of ninety-eight students in the three classrooms,” according to the historic places document.

In 1920, hoping to improve the Pleasant Plains school, the community raised $750, the Hertford County school board contributed another $850 toward building a new three-room school, and the community received a $300 grant from the Rosenwald Foundation.

Although about a third of the construction cost of the school was low compared to other Rosenwald schools, Julius Rosenwald, the founder of the fund, “agreed to allow … funds to help rural Southern communities erect schools for black,” the historic places document explained if the community also contributed.

The school was in use from 1920 to 1950. When it closed, students began attending C.S. Brown School in Winton, which was also a Rosenwald-funded school that is now the Hertford County C.S. Brown Cultural Arts Center and Museum in Winton.

Chief Thomas Lewis, chief of the Meherrin nation, began his formal education at the school, but he recalled, “the floor fell in, and we had to go from there to one of the county schools. So by living in this area, we went to C.S. Brown.”

When he got to his new school, he and his brother who was in the second grade, “had to repeat grades,” he said. “I don’t know the reason, but that’s what they made us do.”

Although he attended the Pleasant Plains school for only the one year, Lewis has a clear memory of at least one of his teachers.

“Miss Ardelle Garrett, she was my girl. I brought her an apple every day,” Lewis said.

Garrett who, was born in 1904 in Ahoskie, had a long association with the school. As early as the 1930 census, Garrett is listed a teacher in a public school on the census form. And “the North Carolina Education Directory in 1939 notes the school with three teachers, including Ardelle Garrett, the principal,” according to the historic places research.

As a teacher, Garrett seemed to have had an impact on all her students.

“My father’s 96 and he talks about Ardelle Garrett to this day,” Lewis said.

There are other memories of what the school was like as well. Lewis mentioned that in the morning “we had people designated to go to the coal power and get coal, because that’s how the classrooms were heated.”

There is also a mention in the historic places report that Lewis recalled using “the outhouses in back of the school.”

There was a strong sense of community among the families surrounding the Pleasant Plains community.

“This stretch of highway, at one time you could leave Winton and drive to Ahoskie, and you knew that was Roy’s house and Thomas Chavis’ house, and whoever’s house. Back then, we knew everyone,” said Dr. Terry Hall, Pleasant Plains Church deacon, in describing U.S. Highway 13 that passes the church.

Yet if the C.S. Brown School was a larger and more modern school, it still took the community keep it going.

“There were a lot of fundraisers,” Lewis recalled. “They would sell cakes and pies to buy band uniforms and football equipment, all that kind of stuff.”

“They used to show movies. You could pay 15 cent and go see a movie,” Pierce added.

Although the school did not have the resources the white schools of the county had, what it did have were very good teachers.

“The teachers were good. We had people from here that went on to colleges and did well,” Hall said. “I think in some of the competitions, they used to have debates and stuff like that. They did good.”

In 1968, Hertford County Schools began the process of consolidating their schools and for the first year, student attendance was optional.

“It was part of what they called freedom of choice. I wanted to try to get a new experience. So I transferred (to Ahoskie High School),” Pierce said. Pierce graduated from Ahoskie High School in 1968.

The greater opportunity that was offered by the white schools may now be playing a role in how difficult repairing the Pleasant Plains School has become.

“We’ve gotten into an older population and people have gone into different professions,” Hall said. “Years ago, Thomas and his father and other people that did carpentry … they would have been buying the materials would have been all that would have cost us.”

“It’s like my younger brother, he said, ‘I’m leaving here because I’m not doing nothing with my hands,’” Lewis said. “And he moved to Roanoke Rapids.”

The Carolinas chapter of ocean advocacy organization Oceana invite the public to join “a night of whales and ales” Wednesday, March 25, in Wilmington.

Connect with the experts leading the charge for North Atlantic right whale conservation at the event set for 6-7:30 p.m. at Azalea Station, 1502 Castle St.

Related: NOAA Fisheries considers changing right whale protections

The session will include discussion of how the vessel speed rule is transforming the landscape for their survival.

Those planning to attend are asked to RSVP online by March 23, as the venue can accommodate only about 30 guests.

The North Carolina Marine & Estuary Foundation and North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries plan this year to expand a red drum tagging program that offers insight into the movement patterns of North Carolina’s official state saltwater fish.

The foundation announced Tuesday plans to tag 25 more red drum, adding to the 33 tagged last year during expeditions led by the foundation and the division in conjunction with local fishing guides along the North Carolina coast.

The tags allow the public to track the movements of red drum, including through coastal inlets and spawning locations, through an interactive tracking platform funded by the foundation and developed in collaboration with technology company Mapotic.

The interactive tracking platform for red drum brings cutting-edge marine science directly to the public.

Since its launch, the platform has recorded more than 28,000 views.

“Red drum are an iconic symbol of North Carolina’s coastal communities, and the public interest in our groundbreaking red drum tracker demonstrates North Carolinians’ strong affinity for the species,” Marine & Estuary Foundation Executive Director Chad Thomas stated in a release. “This year, we are excited to continue developing our platform and aim to tag 25 additional red drum in partnership with the Division. Our work enables researchers, anglers, and the public to better understand the migratory habits of one of North Carolina’s most economically and culturally significant species.”

A pilot study launched in 2024 in which 10 adult red drum were tagged in Pamlico Sound allowed researchers to determine which tag attachment methods work best and optimal satellite transmission settings.

The tagging project was expanded last year and is being conducted with assistance from recreational fishing guides and as part of the division’s annual longline survey.

Tags are programmed in intervals ranging from 30 days to 12 months to detach from a fish and “pop up” at the surface, transmitting daily location data to the Argos satellite network, creating a detailed map of a fish’s movements.

“Because red drum often travel near the surface, some tags may send data before their programmed release, providing early insights into fish locations,” according to the release.

Registration is open for the 2026 North Carolina Aquaculture Development Conference, a three-day event that focuses on the future of aquaculture in state.

The event, which will be held March 25-27 at they Crystal Coast Civic Center on the Carteret Community College campus in Morehead City, is to include keynote sessions, technical workshops, and interactive discussions on a range of aquaculture species and production systems relevant to the state.

The program is a time for the public, current and aspiring fish farmers, scientists, educators, researchers, students, and agency and regulatory professionals to come together to share ideas, advance best practices, and strengthen connections across the aquaculture community, organizers said.

The Got to Be NC Seafood Expo, which celebrates the state’s seafood industry, will take place during the event, and innovative equipment, technologies, and products will be showcased

There will be a career fair March 25 and attendees may join in at 6 p.m. for trivia night at Tight Lines Pub and Brewing Co. in downtown Morehead City.

Agendas for each day of the conference are available online. To register for the conference and the expo visit https://ncaquaculture.com/registration/.

Young learners with an interest in science, technology, engineering, art, and math can get hands-on experience at the Coastal Studies Institute at the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus in Wanchese this summer.

Online registration opens March 2 for the camps that explore the Outer Banks. The fee is $425 a week for each camper.

Camps are 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and held every week from June 6 to Aug. 7. No camp is scheduled for the week of Fourth of July.

Themes for campers ages 10 to 13 include the following:

• “Coastal Kingdoms: Coastal Marine Biology + Ecology Camp” June 8-12 and June 15-19.
• “Shapes in Science: Art + Science Camp” June 22-26 and July 6-10.
• “Blue Horizons: Coastal Engineering Camp” July 13-17 and July 20-24.
• “Legends of the Atlantic: Maritime Archeology + Ocean Exploration Camp” July 27-31 and Aug. 3-7.

Organizers have planed a one-week camp for ages 13-17 themed “Coastal Explorers: Marine Science Technology & Remote Sensing Camp” for Aug. 10-14.

Contact Parker Murphy at 252-475-5452 for general camp questions. Contact ECU Continuing and Professional Education at 252-328-9198 about the registration process.

Led by East Carolina University, Coastal Studies Institute is a multi-institutional research and educational partnership of the UNC System, in partnership with North Carolina State University, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Wilmington and Elizabeth City State University.

Dare County students have an opportunity to share their insights on America’s 250th anniversary and the county’s role in the nation’s history through two programs by the Dare A250 Committee.

Dare A250 is the county’s celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, part of the statewide America 250 NC coordinated by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Students in third through 12th grade are encouraged to enter the committee’s essay contest and student art exhibit, both “designed to celebrate local history, highlight student talent and support innovative learning in the lead-up to the Dare A250 Faire” on April 18.

Essays may focus on the themes of freedom, community, innovation, and the diverse narratives that define American history, organizers said.

The top three winners in each grade group will receive a financial award. Winners will be recognized during the Dare County A250 Faire. Submit essays using the online form by March 15.

The A250 Student Art Showcase will be on display during the Dare County A250 Faire, when winners will be announced.

The art contest “encourages young artists to explore what America means to them—its history, its people, its challenges, and its hopes for the next 250 years,” organizers said.

Submissions must be entered by March 27. Use the online form.

Get a peek of the underwater world of maritime archaeology at 4 p.m. Wednesday with the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University on its Outer Banks Campus.

The program, “Maritime Mysteries,” at the facility in Wanchese is an opportunity to learn about North Carolina’s maritime history and how its studied.

The interactive lesson is for families with children 7 and older.

The session is open to the public with limited availability, on a first-come, first-serve basis, at $10 per person.

Contact Lauren Kerlin at kerlinl22@ecu.edu or 252-475-5451 with questions or for more information.

The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher invites you to cast your vote on names for some of its newest, cutest residents.

Two months have passed since the aquarium welcomed an all-male trio of Asian small-clawed otters born during a full moon on Dec. 5, 2025.

As these adorable pups grow, physical differences are beginning to show and they’re starting to develop their own personalities.

The boys share what aquarium officials are calling “very special genetics,” making them “promising additions” to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan program.

Their grandparents, Si and Fun, as well as mom, Milli, are all from Hong Kong.

Si and Fun were confiscated in 2018 by the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and moved to Ocean Park Hong Kong where they were placed under the professional care of animal experts.

Later that year, Milli was born. She was sent to the Fort Fisher aquarium in January 2024, where she was paired with mate Binx later that year.

Aquarium staff focus on names that highlight an important connection, such as historical or cultural significance, a species’ history or scientific name, and an attribute, adaptation, or behavior of the animal.

Voters may choose one of the following three groups of name options:

1. Koshi, Bheri, and Seti.
2. Bo, Eddy, and Reed.
3. Nyx, Baloo, and Bodhi.

Meanings of each name, information about each pup, and how to vote are on the aquarium’s website.

The voting deadline is noon Feb. 19.

Sturgeon City Environmental Education Center in Jacksonville is inviting women of all ages for an evening of inspiration, connection and empowerment to help shape the future of science.

“She Innovates: A Women in STEM Event” will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Feb. 11 at Sturgeon City, 50 Court St. in downtown Jacksonville. Attendance is free.

Sturgeon City educators will lead hand-on activities focused on the work of women including Rachel Carson, Katherine Johnson, Rosalind Franklin and Dr. Mae Jemison.

Women professionals in various STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields will be there to share their career journeys and offer insights into their educational paths.

This will be an open-flow event where participants may arrive and depart at their convenience.

North Carolina Sea Grant is now accepting applications for NC STEM Policy Post-Graduate Fellowships.

The fellowships provide graduate students from North Carolina colleges and universities with opportunities to serve full-time for a year in high-level state government offices, focusing on policy topics related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The fellowship includes a stipend of $52,500 for the year and an additional $2,000 in travel support for professional development opportunities. Students must be enrolled in and nearing graduation or have recently completed a master’s or advanced degree in a STEM-related discipline.

In addition to the stipend and travel support, fellows will have access to professional development and networking opportunities through Sigma Xi, the international honor society of science and engineering, starting with a policy workshop in summer 2026.

Possible placement offices include the following:

• N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, State Energy Office (SEO).
• N.C. Biotechnology Center.
• N.C. Department of Transportation, Chief Operating Office (NCDOT).
• N.C. Department of Commerce, Office of Science, Technology & Innovation (OSTI).
• Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership (APNEP).
• N.C. Rural Center.

Learn more about the program on Sea Grant’s website. Completed applications, including recommendation letters, are due by 5 p.m. Friday, March 9, through the online portal.

Annie Harshbarger had been interested in animal behavior ever since she was young. Now, as a doctoral candidate at Duke University’s Marine Lab, she is currently building her thesis on decision-making in pilot whale social groups.

“I sort of knew when I started college that I wanted to study the behavior of whales and dolphins,” Harshbarger said. “The way that they navigate this really challenging environment that they’ve evolved to live in is very interesting.”

Harshbarger spoke about the way we can see this in the behaviors of whales off the coast of Cape Hatteras. She said in a talk at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences that the behavior of pilot whales in that area demonstrates this flexibility. “They’re generalist foragers, so they can eat a lot of different things, so that means they can live in a lot of different habitats, and their behavior varies with what they live and what they’re eating.”

Pilot whales’ flexibility is tempered by the needs of their social groups, however. Unlike other whale species, they stay with the same group of whales for their entire lives (with occasional exceptions of males who join other groups to mate). When pilot whales dive for food, they do so together. Harshbarger is studying how those groups make decisions at different points throughout this process — a question without a lot of known answers, as of now.

New technology brings new information

One of the tools Harshbarger is using for her thesis is data gathered from digital acoustic recording tags, or DTAGs. These tracking tags can capture whale movement in three dimensions, painting a much more holistic picture of their behavior, and as the name implies, they record sound as well as movement. The technology was initially developed in 2003 by Mark Johnson and Peter Tyack in order to better understand the ways in which human-made noise pollution potentially affects the behavior of whales and dolphins.

“They were designed to study the effects of anthropogenic noise. We didn’t have the tools to understand the ways that noise pollution affects marine life. Peter and Mark came up with the tags to tackle that,” said Dr. Andy Read, director of the Duke Marine Lab and Harshbarger’s academic adviser.

Now this technology is being used to paint a fuller picture of what pilot whales are doing beneath the ocean’s surface. Harshbarger explained that the acoustic tags not only captured sound, but depth and movement in three dimensions. This allows researchers to study specific details about the whales’ diving behavior. Harshbarger is particularly interested in this data because of her focus on how pilot whales decide as a group when and where to look for food.

The information shows that pilot whales usually stick together throughout the entirety of their dives. It was originally hypothesized that while hunting, pilot whales would stay far enough apart from one another so as to avoid competition while also staying close enough that they could still hear each other.

To test this, researchers used information gathered from the acoustic tags. Because the tags have special hydrophones attached, they are able to record the sounds in such a way that they can gain an approximation of each whale’s position relative to the others.

“We can really understand how the group is foraging separately and together like we never have before,” Harshbarger said.

Tackling the big questions

One of the great unknowns with pilot whale behavior has to do with their decision-making processes. They are flexible animals who eat a wide variety of food found in many different environments. So how do they decide when and where to eat? Because pilot whale populations around the world are so large and varied, it can be difficult to track any one group consistently enough to determine the specifics of their behavior.

This is the question that Harshbarger is trying to help answer. “I found that decision-making process really interesting. So I’m studying how groups of pilot whales make decisions at different points in the dive cycle,” she said. Harshbarger compared it to a large family or group of friends trying to decide where to go for dinner. There are a number of options, and it can be difficult to make a decision for a big group of people. The same rule applies to pilot whales.

Harshbarger hopes that her research will begin to tackle these questions. Data gathered from the tagging of the Gibraltar whales has already answered some of them. By examining the audio and movement information gathered from the acoustic tags, researchers have learned that pilot whales not only dive together, but they usually forage for food at the same depths as well, even though there isn’t currently any evidence of them sharing prey.

The question of how pilot whales make decisions as a group remains mostly unanswered. Large populations and limited technology makes tracking them difficult in the long term. Acoustic tags stay on the whales’ bodies for around 24 hours maximum, so information is still limited.

“I think Annie’s work is probably going to leave us with a lot more questions. The potential conflicts between animals in groups is a really interesting idea. But Annie’s going to address the first, fundamental questions,” Read said.

Harshbarger said she believes in the value of studying and understanding these whales’ habits and behaviors, even if they are not currently endangered. There have been instances where local populations have suffered declines due to disease, and those populations’ behaviors changed as a result. Researchers were only able to notice that change because they had been observing the population beforehand.

“I think that’s kind of why I’m really interested in this, even for pilot whales, which are not necessarily something that people think of as the species with the most pressing conservation needs,” Harshbarger said. “That’s why I think it’s valuable to understand social behavior in any species, because you know that could change for them at any time.”

County Soil and Water Conservation Districts are accepting applications from high school students for a scholarship to attend the 2026 Resource Conservation Workshop, June 14-19 at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

The Resource Conservation Workshop is a weeklong intensive study for students to learn about natural resources and their management in today’s environment. Students participate in field study, tours, hands-on sessions, and activities that focus on college-decision making and career decisions, according to the workshop’s website.

Workshop students stay on N.C. State’s campus in dormitories and attend workshop sessions in Williams Hall, Lake Wheeler Soils Field Lab as well as field studies at Falls Lake State Recreation Area and Clemmons State Educational Forest in Clayton.

Rising 10th through 12th graders interested in the workshop should contact their county’s Soil and Water Conservation District representative for an application, which should be submitted no later than March 31.

The Resource Conservation Workshop is sponsored by the Division of Soil and Water Conservation of the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the Crop and Soil Sciences Department of N.C. State University, and the N.C. Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts in conjunction with the Hugh Hammond Bennett Chapter – Soil and Water Conservation Society of America, N.C. Soil and Water Conservation Commission.

Learn how to identify invasive plants and get tips on how to manage them during the next installment of the webinar series, “Landscapes that Last.”

Featured speaker Robbie Davis, founder and owner of Native Plants Matter NC, will headline the Feb. 27 session, where participants will be given an invasive plant management overview that will delve into how to identify common species of concern and apply practical, effective strategies to control growth on different property types and scales.

North Carolina Sea Grant’s Gloria Putnam will provide opening comments, followed by Davis, who specializes in invasive species removal and native plant installation.

N.C. Environmental Education Certification Program Criteria III or continuing education professional development credits will be available through this session.

Registration is now open for the February webinar set for noon – 1:15 p.m. Space is limited.

Created by Sea Grant and the Coastal Landscape Initiative, “Landscapes that Last” invites coastal residents, local governments, home owners associations and nurseries to explore sustainable practices to protect the state’s coastal environment.

Session topics include expert advice on things like choosing salt-tolerant plants, tree conservation, stormwater pond improvements and sourcing eco-friendly plants.

For questions about the series contact Putnam by email at gloria_putnam@ncsu.edu or by phone at 919-999-7469.

Love horses? The N.C. Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve has an offer for you!

Applications are now being accepted for the Pony Patrol, a volunteer-driven program that helps raise community awareness, protect wild horses and promote compliance with wild horse guidelines at the Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackleford Banks in Carteret County.

Candidates who are selected will receive training in visitor communication, the importance of allowing wild horses to remain wild, and skills required to protect the safety of visitors and horses.

Volunteers serve three- to four-hour shifts patrolling and talking with visitors about ways to respectfully experience the wild horses and their natural behaviors. Volunteers are expected to serve a minimum of three times a month.

Last year’s volunteers conducted 260 patrols and engaged with about 3,900 visitors at both the Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackleford Banks, according to the N.C. Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve, which partners with Cape Lookout National Seashore and the Foundation for Shackelford Horses Inc. to offer the program.

Applicants must be at least 18, a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, and physically able to walk through sandy terrain in conditions to include intense sun, heat, humidity, wind and insects.

Applicants who want to volunteer for Rachel Carson Reserve and Shackleford Banks must apply to both locations.

Positions are limited and therefore competitive.

The online application will close at 11:59 p.m. Feb. 23. Candidates who are selected will be contacted for interviews in late February or early March.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review, is launching a leadership and professional development program focused on coastal issues.

The cohort-based Coastal Leadership Institute is designed for individuals who play leadership roles in coastal North Carolina communities, as well as leaders from across the state whose work influences the coast.

The institute is designed as a six-month program with two full-day sessions per month beginning in March. The cohort size is limited to about 20–25 participants. Registration is now open for the inaugural class.

“The Coastal Federation has established a strong reputation as a convener of people and organizations interested in protecting and restoring the coast,” said Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis, “so the launch of this new Institute is a natural fit for us and will be important to advancing our mission.”

Through facilitated discussions, expert-led sessions, and site-based learning, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the forces shaping coastal communities, examined through economic, environmental, natural, and cultural history lenses, while building strong professional relationships that support effective leadership in complex coastal settings, institute organizers said.

“Coastal issues rarely have simple solutions,” said Coastal Federation Chief Community Engagement Officer Amanda Lyle. “By bringing together leaders from different communities and sectors, the Institute creates space for shared learning and helps build the capacity for informed decision-making.”

The tuition of $1,000 per participant covers program materials, meals, transportation for site visits, lodging, and alumni programming access. Scholarships are available.

The six sessions will convene in March, April, May, September, October, and November, with a summer break.

An orientation is set for March 9-10 in Beaufort. This session will also explore how the cultural, historical, and ecological context of coastal North Carolina factor into the region’s identity, challenges, and leadership needs.

Subsequent sessions will cover coastal and marine sciences, growth and economic development, coastal policy and management issues, and natural resource conservation and restoration. This year, sessions will primarily take place in Carteret County and the Wilmington area.

The program is intended to become an annual offering that brings together emerging and established leaders from a wide range of professional backgrounds, including business, local and regional government, military, education, nonprofit, and industry.

The Institute is geared to create a space for thoughtful dialogue, practical learning, and a trusted peer network that continues well beyond the program.

 “We really couldn’t do this without our partners and supporters – the many individuals and organizations who have committed to sharing their expertise, insights, resources and time with the participants and to helping create new professional connections for the betterment of our coast,” Davis added.

The inaugural Coastal Leadership Institute cohort is partially subsidized through the support of the Duke Energy Foundation, the Carlyle Adams Foundation, and the RBC Foundation.

More details and the application are online.

A Dare County nonprofit that supports students, teaches and schools in the county has polished its application process and scholastic program to help ease the financial burden of educational expenses.

The Dare Education Foundation has announced it will transition its scholarships to renewable awards beginning with the upcoming scholarship cycle. This change will allow recipients to continue to receive financial support throughout their education as long as they meet renewal criteria.

The change will go into effect beginning with the upcoming scholarship cycle and, “reflects DEF’s commitment to long-term student success and recognizes the ongoing financial challenges students face during the broad spectrum of postsecondary pathways,” including four-year bachelor’s degree programs, two-year associate degrees, and workforce-focused vocational and technical training, according to a release.

“By moving to renewable scholarships, we are strengthening our commitment to the students we serve,” Susan Rhew, Dare Education Foundation Board of Directors chair, stated in the release. “This approach allows us to invest more deeply in each recipient’s academic journey and provide stability as they pursue their educational goals.”

The foundation, which was established in 2002, has also partnered with the Outer Banks Community Foundation to manage the administration of the scholarship application process. The foundation will continue to oversee scholarship selection and awards.

“This partnership benefits students by reducing the stress of multiple applications and strengthening the strong relationships between our organizations,” Community Foundation Chair Jason Waughtel said in the release.  “By streamlining the process, we’re making it easier for students to access the support they need to pursue their educational goals.”

More details about eligibility, application timelines, and renewal criteria will be announced in the coming weeks.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is accepting applications for its newest program aimed at helping business owners grow and strengthen their businesses.

The center’s new Thrive Lab will offer a series of sessions that focus on finance, funding, sales, product strategy and leadership beginning in March.

“Entrepreneurs will also build a strong peer network and receive hands-on support to develop the mindset and capabilities of CEOs, CFOs and CPOs, all while preserving the unique strengths that make their businesses thrive,” according to a university release.

The lab will run through May and is open to qualified business owners across all industries. The deadline to apply is Feb. 27. Space is limited. Additional details are available on the lab’s website.

Wells Fargo’s contribution to the program covers half of the original cost to attend the lab, lowering the total fee to $750.

According to a study by the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State in collaboration with Fayetteville State University released in 2024, adopting policies and initiatives to help 5% of “aspirational” businesses become self-sufficient will create more than 24,000 jobs annually and $980 million in new wages.

Thrive Lab was created in response to those findings as targeted effort to help strengthen businesses and support long-term entrepreneurial growth in coastal North Carolina, according to the release.

“It’s relatively easy to start a business, but many fail within a year and only half make it to five years,” UNCW CIE Director Heather McWhorter stated in the release. “Even more striking are the entrepreneurs who don’t pay themselves and who are stuck year after year. CIE’s Thrive Lab will give entrepreneurs and small business owners the tools and connections they need to succeed and to scale, leading to direct impact for our students and community.”

Jacksonville will kick off Black History Month with an afternoon of inspiration and celebration at the African American Read-In.

Now in it’s 22nd year, the read-in celebrates culture, creativity, and the power of reading together.

The program is scheduled for 2-4 p.m. on Feb. 1 at the Jack Amyette Recreation Center, 825 South Drive, where after-school students will share poems, literature and artistic works created by African American authors.

Entertainment and light refreshments will be served following the ceremony.

Rachel Veal, conservation horticulturist with the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, is the featured speaker for the second webinar in the “Landscapes that Last: The What, Why and How of Nature-friendly Landscaping” webinar series created by North Carolina Sea Grant and the Coastal Landscapes Initiative.

The series explores sustainable practices that protect North Carolina’s unique coastal environment. Registration is open for the second webinar set for noon on Jan. 15, 2026, on the Zoom platform.

Veal, in her role at the aquarium, oversees plant selection, installation and ongoing maintenance throughout the facility, and surrounding grounds.

The webinar session will focus on “The What, Why and How of Nature-friendly Landscaping,” organizers said.

What makes a landscape truly sustainable, and why does it matter along North Carolina’s coast? This introductory session explores the core principles of conservation landscaping and how they support healthy land and water systems.

Participants will learn practical, science-based concepts for eco-friendly landscaping that will help you make informed choices and create thriving, resilient coastal properties.

Each session in the “Landscapes that Last” series features subject matter experts who will share practical strategies ranging from choosing salt-tolerant plants and conserving trees to improving stormwater ponds and sourcing eco-friendly plants. The series is for coastal residents, local governments, homeowner associations and nurseries and aims to build shared knowledge and healthier coastal communities.

 Professional development credits are available for the N.C. Environmental Education Certification Program: Criteria III or Continuing Education.

More information about the rest of the series is online.

The Cape Fear Museum of History and Science will be temporarily closing later this month in preparation for opening its new facility in downtown Wilmington.

The museum’s Market Street location will close to the public beginning at 5 p.m. on Dec. 31 to allow staff to safely prepare and relocate more than 400 artifacts to be displayed at the new building at 230 Grace St.

“This process, including the move of items and installation of new exhibits, will take approximately seven months to complete, with an anticipated opening in July 2026,” according to a release. “Once open, this downtown block will be anchored by the Museum and Public Library, creating a cultural hub for residents and visitors.”

The new facility will accommodate permanent exhibitions, classrooms, an outdoor terrace, 60-seat planetarium, play spaces, hands-on exhibits and gallery, outdoor learning gallery, traveling exhibition gallery, and more.

The museum’s current home at 814 Market St. will function as a dedicated research facility, exhibition design and fabrication workshop, and collections and management complex once the new building opens.

“The museum team has spent years developing exhibition content to bring a modern, state-of-the-art cultural amenity to New Hanover County,” museum Director Kate Baillon said in a release. “Cape Fear Museum’s facility in the Grace District will offer a dynamic and immersive educational experience that celebrates our region’s history, science, and cultures. We look forward to welcoming visitors in summer 2026.”

The museum is open 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1-5 p.m. on Sunday. It will be closed Dec. 24-26 for the Christmas holiday.

Registration is open for two programs in January that give bird enthusiasts an opportunity to see an array of species in eastern North Carolina during the winter months.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, part of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, is hosting Coastal Culture and Waterfowl Watching Excursion Jan. 7-8. Guides will lead the trip throughout Pamlico, Hyde, and Dare counties to observe wintering waterfowl at wildlife refuges and seashores.

The one-day option is scheduled for Jan. 15 to observe wintering waterfowl at Lake Mattamuskeet and Pungo Lake national wildlife refuges.

“This program gives people the chance to experience the beauty and diversity of our coastal ecosystems up close,” Education Curator Courtney Felton said in a statement. “It’s not just about birdwatching — it’s about understanding how these migratory species connect to the larger story of North Carolina’s maritime environment.”

During the excursion, attendees can expect to see a wide variety of birds from tundra swans to diving ducks like buffleheads.

“Winter is an extraordinary time along our coast,” Felton continued. “Some of these species are only here for a short window each year, and witnessing them in their natural habitat is something truly special.”

The fee for the two-day excursion is $95 per person, or $85.50 for members of the Friends of the museum, which sponsors the program. The cost covers the guided tour and transportation. Meals and lodging are the responsibility of individual participants.  

The one-day tour is $50, or $45 for Friends members.

The program primarily takes place outdoors and is not recommended for children under 12. Participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

Because travel is by the museum van, seating is limited. Advance registration is required. Visit ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com to register or call 252-504-7758 for more information.

The national memorial on the Outer Banks that honors the accomplishments of Wilbur and Orville Wright is celebrating Dec. 17 the 122nd anniversary of the brothers’ first heavier-than-air, controlled, powered flight.

Starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, the National Park Service will be joined for the celebration by Dare County Schools, and the nonprofit organizations, the First Flight Society and Outer Banks Forever. The First Flight Society promotes awareness of the history and future of flight. Outer Banks Forever is the official nonprofit partner of the Wright Brothers site, as well as the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

Park entrance fees are waived for the day.

As part of this year’s program, the First Flight Society will induct at 9 a.m. William P. Lear (1902-1978) into its Paul E. Garber Shrine, a portrait gallery located inside the memorial’s visitor center that honors those who have achieved significant firsts in aviation. Lear was an American inventor and businessman, best known for founding Lear Jet Industries. His portrait will be installed inside the gallery at 11 a.m.

The First Flight Society established the shrine in 1966 and named it after the curator and historian at the Smithsonian Institution who played a key role in the 1946 National Air Museum.

An introduction Wright Flight Academy is at 9:10 a.m. The two-year program began in 2023 as part of Dare County School’s Aviation Program, which offers juniors and seniors an opportunity to learn about aviation, science, and engineering while building a workable airplane on the memorial’s grounds.

At 10 a.m. as part of the celebration, students plan to unveil their completed airplane built during the academy. The build is the second airplane ever constructed on the historic site, “following in the footsteps of the Wright brothers’ and carrying their legacy into a modern classroom,” organizers said.

“The project underscores how Career and Technical Education, strengthened by community partnerships, can inspire the next generation of aviators and engineers. In a true full-circle moment, students are carrying forward the same spirit of innovation that launched the world’s first flight on the very ground where aviation history began,” organizers continued.

Throughout the day there will be demonstrations with the replica 1903 Wright Flyer, and the Wright Brothers Monument will be open for visitors to view the lower atrium, weather dependent. Ranger-led educational programs outside of the visitor center are scheduled for 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.

The First Flight Society‘s annual luncheon that commemorates the flight anniversary will be from 12:30 to 3 p.m. that afternoon at Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head. The organization invited to speak from the Lear world, Bill Lear’s daughter, Shanda Lear-Baylor, and Jeff Coggins, chief pilot and assistant director of operations for the Phoenix Air Group. Lunch will be served and there will be a silent auction. Tickets are $60 each before Dec. 10 or $75 after, and available on the website.

There’s only a week left to register for a new webinar series created by North Carolina Sea Grant and the Coastal Landscapes Initiative that explores sustainable practices that protect North Carolina’s unique coastal environment.

The 2025-26 series, “Landscapes that Last,” is intended for coastal residents, local governments, homeowners associations and nurseries “to build shared knowledge and healthier coastal communities,” organizers said.

Registration is open for the first webinar but space is limited.

Each session will feature presentations by panelists with a variety of expertise and experience. These include practical strategies, such as choosing salt-tolerant plants and conserving trees to improving stormwater ponds, and tips for sourcing eco-friendly plants. Sessions will end with 15 minutes of audience questions.

The first in the series, “Local Policies for Native Plants,” is set for noon until 1:15 p.m. Dec. 11. The session will feature speakers from North Carolina communities who will discuss their policies to advance landscapes that protect native vegetation and discourage the spread of invasive plants.

This session’s speakers will share how local policies and community guidelines can make a lasting difference. Speakers include Pine Knoll Shores Planning Administrator Charlie Rocci, Bald Head Association Assistant Director Dora Richey and Raleigh City Council Member Jane Harrison.

Rocci, a coastal municipal planner, facilitated development of new landscaping requirements for forest management while updating the town’s Unified Development Ordinance.

Richey, a homeowners association director, is implementing planting covenants on new construction and renovated properties to enhance and protect island properties and the environment.

Harrison, in her capacity as an elected official, has promoted and helped to adopt ordinances to prohibit invasive species and encourage restoration of native landscapes in an urban area.                                                                                                              

Future webinar dates are to be announced as schedules are confirmed.

Professional development credits are available under the North Carolina Environmental Education Certification Program: Criteria III or Continuing Education.

Student researchers will present their findings on Nags Head Woods during the next installment of the “Science on the Sound” lecture series presented by the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus.

The lecture, “Patterns of protection: Natural and Social Values of the Nags Head Woods Maritime Forest,” is set for 3 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11, at the Coastal Studies Institute, 850 N.C. Highway 345, Wanchese.

The program is free and the public is encouraged to attend. The program will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

The monthly, in-person, lecture series at the Coastal Studies Institute brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina.

During this month’s program, students of the Outer Banks Field Site will present the findings of their capstone research project.

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institute for the Environment’s Outer Banks Field Site is a semester-long, interdisciplinary residential learning experience for undergraduate students hosted by the Coastal Studies Institute. Each fall since 2001, these students have spent the semester taking classes, engaging in internships with local organizations, and completing a capstone research project as a group.

This year’s research examines the maritime forest within the Nags Head Woods Preserve. The students interviewed stakeholders about the values that they ascribe to the woods and collected data about the salt spray, vegetation, and wildlife within the woods. The program will last about 90 minutes, including presentation, questions and discussion.

The University of North Carolina’s Center for Marine Science has been awarded a $500,000 grant to help enhance flood safety and resilience efforts in New Hanover County.

With the two-year planning grant, CMS will convene a Flood Resilience Consortium “that unites agencies and organizations focused on community preparedness, facilitating outreach, workshops, research, and implementation planning to guide long-term flood resilience efforts,” according to a release from The Endowment, which awarded the grant.

“This consortium will connect the many agencies and experts already working on flood issues, allowing them to move forward with shared priorities and clear roles,” The Endowment’s Director of Community Safety Mary Vail Ware stated in the release.

The Endowment was established with proceeds from the sale of New Hanover Regional Medical Center from the county to Novant Health five years ago. Since that time, millions in grant funds have been awarded to projects and endeavors in the community.

The grant “will help align ongoing resilience efforts, pinpoint high-risk areas, and guide cost-effective solutions that reduce future impacts and support faster recovery,” the release states.

The consortium will produce an inventory of existing resources and tools, including maps, models, and data, a plan detailing vulnerabilities, priority projects, timelines and responsibilities, and a funding strategy that aligns public, private and philanthropic investments with the most critical initiatives.

“This is about building a community that can withstand, adapt, and bounce back,” Ware said. “By investing in early planning and bringing partners together, we’re laying the foundation for solutions that safeguard our environment, infrastructure, and future.”

“Preparing for the future means learning from the past,” Sophie Dagenais, The Endowment’s interim president and chief executive officer, said in the release. “We remember the storms that have shaped this community, and we are committed to supporting efforts strengthening New Hanover County’s infrastructure, so residents, businesses, and ecosystems are better protected. This investment supports a coordinated, data-driven approach to flood resilience.”

A series of events will kick off beginning Thursday to commemorate and honor the victims of the 1898 Wilmington Massacre and Coup D’etat.

The annual remembrance will feature a host of programs, beginning with a soil jar display program event at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Sherman Hayes Gallery at 6 p.m. Thursday.

Programs will continue through the weekend, including an 1898 wreath-laying ceremony at 9 a.m. at 1898 Memorial Park, 1018 N. Third St.

A full list of events with links to registrations is available online.

The massacre took place on Nov. 10, 1898, when a mob of armed white men marched to a local African American newspaper and set it on fire following a campaign by prominent white citizens in the city to overthrow the legally elected biracial city government.

After setting The Daily Record office ablaze, the violent mob rushed the city’s Northside, attacking African Americans. The number of African American Wilmington residents who died that day remains unknown.

Local elected officials, forced to resign, were replaced by white supremacist leaders.

An online interactive map provides more information and a timeline of events that unfolded during the massacre.

Hear Native Americans throughout North Carolina share their memories and experiences during an upcoming virtual program hosted by the State Archives of North Carolina.

In celebration of American Indian Heritage Month, the State Archives is offering for its Lunch and Learn program “Listening to our Elders: the American Indian Heritage Commission Oral History Project.”

The event is set to be held noon-1 p.m. Nov. 5.

The American Indian Heritage Commission, in collaboration with the State Archives, in December 2022 began gathering the living memory and experiences of Native Americans throughout the state.

The presentation will include what the project’s staff learned from the elders with what they took from the process, how to set up an oral history project, and conduct interviews.

Register in advance at https://www.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_aA9ml57tQzSPK9VM5idAUw.

For more information, contact Danielle Shirilla at dani.shirilla@dncr.nc.gov or by phone at 919-814-6881.

The North Carolina Indian Heritage Commission advises and assists the North Carolina Natural and Cultural Resources secretary in the preservation, interpretation, and promotion of Native history, arts, customs, and culture.

The practice of burning as a way to clear land has been banned in Leland.

During a special-called meeting on Monday, the town’s council unanimously enacted the ban, citing growing concerns about smoke and air quality impacts from recent burns, according to a release.

The ban “does not affect other forms of open burning permitted under state law,” the release states.

The town will host an open burning workshop next month with a focus on educating residents about state regulations on opening burning and how those apply within the town’s limits.

Town staff will be joined by officials with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality and North Carolina Forest Service in giving brief presentations on existing regulations, enforcement, and applicability in the Brunswick County town.

Those presentations will be followed by a public comment period, after which time Leland Town Council members will discuss the information presented, public input, town policies, practices, and ordinances.

The workshop, which will be held as a special meeting of the town council, is set for 3 p.m. Nov. 10 at the Leland Cultural Arts Center, 1212 Magnolia Village Way.

Alliance for Cape Fear Trees is hosting its first big tree giveaway of the season in Leland.

The giveaway will take place beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, at the Leland Cultural Arts Center, 1212 Magnolia Village Way. The event will end at noon or until the nonprofit organization runs out of trees to give away.

Available trees include oaks, river birches, magnolias, red maples, serviceberries, and blackgums.

All trees are hand-selected to support local wildlife, provide shade, and boost biodiversity, according to the organization.

“And these native species are champions of resilience in the Lower Cape Fear region’s climate and soil,” the organization stated.

Residents are encouraged to browse the species list in advance of the tree giveaway to decide which type of tree may be best suited for their yards.

Train volunteers and tree stewards will also be on hand to offer tips for selecting trees, planting guidance, and care instructions.

Love fossils? Then there’s a day just for you.

Join in a celebration of National Fossil Day Saturday for games, prizes and music at the Aurora Fossil Museum and Fossil Park.

The free event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the museum at 400 Main St.

The Aurora Fossil Museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday until Nov. 30. The museum will be closed on Nov. 27, Thanksgiving Day.

Days and hours of operation are the same for the museum’s fossil park and fossil pits.

During this month’s Science on the Sound lecture series learn how surf forecasters bring real-time ocean and wave conditions and surf reports to a beach near you.

The Coastal Studies Institute is scheduled to host “Predicting Surf on the Outer Banks with the Surfline Forecast Team” at 6 p.m. Thursday at East Carolina University’s Outer Banks campus.

Join Surfline’s forecasting Vice President Kurt Korte, Rob Mitstifer, forecast data lead, and Tim Kent, lead forecaster, as they discuss surf forecasting basics and why the Outer Banks is a unique surf destination.

Surfline provides surf conditions and forecasts for beaches and surf spots around the globe.

Presenters will delve into the tools and technology they use to observe and predict the surf.

Science of the Sound brings perspectives from all over the state to highlight coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina. The program is free.

To join the event via live-stream visit the CSI YouTube channel.

Learn why controlled burns are crucial to maintaining thriving native longleaf pine habitats at this year’s Fire in the Pines Festival in Wilmington.

Now in its 15th year, the festival hosts nature-themed exhibits, hay rides, food trucks, live music and animals, and the grand finale: a controlled burn demonstration.

The festival will be 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Saturday in Halyburton Park, 4099 S 17th St.

The festival is a collaboration among organizations including The Nature Conservancy, N.C. Forest Service, Wilmington Recreation and Downtown Services, Halyburton Park, and North Carolina Coastal Land Trust to raise awareness about the importance of controlled burning and its relationship to longleaf pine forests.

Parking will be available only at Lifepoint Church at 3600 South College Road with free trolley service to and from the festival.

In the event of rain, the festival will be rescheduled for Oct. 11.

The Bird Island Stewards will host monthly guided nature walks every third Wednesday beginning next month through May 2026 on the Bird Island Coastal Reserve in Brunswick County.

The first walk will be hosted at reserve in Sunset Beach at 10 a.m. on Oct. 15.

During these topical walks, stewards will highlight the history, ecology, and wildlife of the reserve, which includes pristine sandy white beaches, dunes, and more than 1,000 acres of salt marsh and meandering creeks.

The Wednesday walks will begin at 10 a.m., cover nearly 3 miles and last approximately 90 minutes to two hours.

Participants are encouraged to wear closed-toe shoes, pants and bring water.

Guides will meet participants at the marsh overlook near 40th Street (West Main Street) in Sunset Beach.

The town enforces paid parking 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. between April 1 and Oct. 31. Ensure you park in a designated parking spot with a valid pass.

There’s still time to register for the annual Ocean Innovation Conference at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

The conference is scheduled to take place in UNCW’s Burney Center from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Virtual registration closes Friday. The fee to register to attend the event virtually is $30. Questions will be taken from virtual participants for keynote speakers and panelists and some virtual innovation fair booths will be available to those who register to attend online.

In-person registration runs through to the day of the conference and costs $129. Seats are limited.

All UNCW students may attend in-person or virtually for free. Tenants with the university’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship receive a 50% discount and CIE members and coworkers a 25% discount.

For more information about discounts contact cie@uncw.edu.

Now in its third year, the conference brings together UNCW’s deep research expertise, the entrepreneurial ecosystem of southeastern North Carolina and those passionate about the ocean and coastal communities to spark conversations about topics including marine biotechnology, alternative materials, living shoreline projects, ocean data science, and emerging innovations.

Highlights of the conference include updates on marine and coastal research, trends in blue economy innovation, and showcasing opportunities for investment, collaboration, and action.

This year’s featured keynote speakers are Deborah Westphal, author and executive advisor at The Karen Toffler Charitable Trust, and world surfing champion and author of The CODE Method Shaun Tomson.

Sessions are held throughout the day and will focus on the regional blue ecosystem, cutting-edge ocean technologies, and efforts to preserve and restore ocean resources.

The event is organized by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Alliance for the Blue Economy (All Blue).

The Outer Banks Association of Realtors announced this week that it had awarded eight $1,500 scholarships to graduating seniors from Dare County and Ocracoke Island.

The association said Tuesday that the awards reflect its “commitment to supporting the next generation of leaders” along the Outer Banks.

The association’s 2025 scholarship recipients include the following students:

• Julian Alvarez Isidoro – Manteo High School.
• Kristin Bennett – Cape Hatteras Secondary School.
• Samuel Cage – Manteo High School.
• Dresden Jackson – First Flight High School.
• Mya Kelly – Manteo High School.
• Audrey Kramer – Cape Hatteras Secondary School.
• Caroline Stocks – Ocracoke High School.
• Spencer Twiford – Manteo High School.

The association’s scholarship committee chaired by Tricia Driscoll of Coldwell Banker Seaside Realty selected the recipients.

“The selection process is both humbling and inspiring,” Driscoll said in the announcement. “So many students had incredible stories. We’re proud to help our community by recognizing this year’s recipients, and we should all look forward to seeing the impact they’ll make.”

Scholarships were presented at each school’s awards night.

“Seeing these students walk the stage was incredibly rewarding,” Outer Banks Association of Realtors President Christi Bryant in the statement, adding that it was a privilege to support them on behalf of the association’s members.

Since the 1990s, the association has awarded over $300,000 in scholarships to more than 200 local students. These scholarships are made possible through the association’s annual Surf, Turf, and Roll initiative, a series of three fundraising events, including a surf fishing, golf, and bowling tournament, which invites the community to donate and support the association’s charitable funds. 

For more information on how to donate to these funds or how to get involved, visit www.outerbanksrealtors.com.

Those slabs of meat labeled “shark” on display in grocery stores and seafood markets might be from a critically endangered species and contain significant levels of mercury, according to a new study.

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill paper, “Sale of critically endangered sharks in the United States” was published Tuesday in Frontiers in Marine Science journal. The study was funded by the university and the National Science Foundation.

Students in the university’s undergraduate-level seafood forensic course analyzed the DNA of 29 shark meat samples collected from 19 filets purchased in grocery stores, seafood markets and Asian specialty markets, mostly in North Carolina, and from 10 products called “jerky” that was ordered online.

Out of the samples, 27 “were ambiguously labeled as shark or mako shark but not as a specific species.” Of the two samples that were labeled, one was shortfin shark mislabeled as blacktip shark, and the other was correctly labeled.

The students identified 11 different species, three of which the Union for Conservation of Nature has designated as critically endangered: great hammerhead, scalloped hammerhead and tope.

“Previous studies have found that the first two species contain very high levels of mercury, illustrating the implications of seafood mislabeling for human health. The availability of shark meat in U.S. grocery stores is surprising given the dramatic decline of shark populations globally,” the authors wrote. “Moreover, the fact that nearly all shark meat is labeled ambiguously or incorrectly amplifies the problem. Accurate, verified product labels for shark meat would benefit consumers and shark conservation efforts, and should be a priority for the seafood industry.”

Savannah Ryburn, the lead author of the study, is a marine ecologist who recently earned her doctorate from UNC Chapel Hill. She and distinguished professor John Bruno are co-instructors for the class.

Ryburn told Coastal Review Tuesday that the main goal of the study was to figure out what species are being sold and if there’s any cause for concern, to which, “we would say ‘yes.’”

Just in the 29 samples analyzed, three were the meat of critically endangered species that are extremely high in mercury, which can be very dangerous for human consumption, Ryburn highlighted.

Finding the highly endangered shark species among the samples is a big conservation concern, “but even more perversely,” Bruno explained, these are long-lived, high-trophic level species with high mercury concentrations.

“Nobody should be eating hammerhead sharks,” Bruno said, because they’re loaded with mercury and the consumer has no idea, since the meat is sold as shark.

“We don’t know if it’s a spiny dogfish that’s low in the food chain, not very long lived, not very big, probably not super concerning in terms of tissue content, but there’s just no way to know,” Bruno added.

With this ambiguous labeling, Ryburn continued, sellers are taking away the consumer’s choice. “It’s very concerning when it comes to the general labeling,” particularly considering their findings are from such a small sample size. “It just raises more concerns for the actual shark meat market in the United States.”

Bruno explained that the shark populations are being decimated by fishing, and mostly for its fin. There are regulations in place that require the fisher to land the entire shark, not just cut off the fin, which is one reason the meat is being sold in stores.

Bruno explained that the fin is shipped to Asia, where it is in demand, and then the rest of the meat goes into either the pet food supply or the human food supply, but it’s not lucrative. The average price in the Raleigh area was around $5 a pound.

The United States Food and Drug Administration only requires sellers to have the meat labeled as shark, Ryburn continued.

The results of the study led the authors to emphasize “that sellers need to be required to label their product to the species name, rather than just shark, so that it can be more regulated and consumers have more of a choice,” she said. “In Europe, their regulations are a bit more specific when it comes to labeling sharks to the species level, so we definitely recommend following suit with that European regulation.”

Seafood Forensics

Bruno is a marine ecologist who, about a decade ago, designed the Seafood Forensics class for students to do the actual research testing and certifying seafood.

“We purchase seafood in grocery stores and restaurants, and we sequence it to identify what it really is, and we quantify mislabeling,” Bruno said. “We teach the undergraduate students about seafood mislabeling,” and use DNA barcoding to figure out what stores are actually selling.

Students are taught basic lab skills such as how to extract and sequence DNA, how to read the sequences and compare them to online databases, or DNA barcoding. Previous classes have studied red snapper and shrimp, for example.

Ryburn explained that the students design the research project they work on throughout the semester.

The idea to study shark meat evolved from a student telling the class that she noticed a grocery store was selling meat under the generic label of “shark,” though there’s hundreds of species of sharks, and they vary, she said.

The students collected the samples, most of which were labeled “shark,” and then began going through the process to identify the species.

About sharks

Ryburn, who studied sharks for her doctorate, said the animal is vital to the overall function and health of the marine ecosystem but “they’re currently being fished at extremely high rates throughout the whole world.”

Many of the species are long lived and, as a result, the populations don’t replenish quickly. If a large number is removed by fishing, it is hard for the population to recover at a sustainable rate.

She called sharks the “cleanup crew” for marine ecosystems, because they prey on injured or sick animals, making the populations of other species stronger.

If there are no sharks to help manage the population of other species, this will cause a cascading effect on the overall health within the ecosystem.

As for the threats to human health, shark meat is similar to tuna, in that there’s a very high level of mercury in its tissue, and that is due to something called bioaccumulation, which is the buildup of chemicals in an organism over time.

“Predators that are higher up in the food chain tend to accumulate more mercury in their tissue from the prey that they’re eating, because everything has mercury in its tissue,” Ryburn said. But with larger predators that live longer and eat bigger prey, the animal tends to accumulate more mercury, and that mercury never leaves the tissue.

Some shark species even eat tuna, like the mako shark, and they’re accumulating all of that mercury when they eat.

“If we go and eat something that’s super high in mercury, we’re also absorbing that mercury into our bodies, and mercury can cause major health issues and even cause people to die,” she said.

The North Carolina Maritime Museums‘ three locations on the coast house maritime history, coastal heritage and marine environments.

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Beaufort and the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport each offer unique exhibits and programs designed for all ages.

The museums highlight maritime and coastal culture including fishermen, boatbuilders and decoy carvers, as well as presents exhibits tell the tales of painters and pirates, shipwrecks and sailboats and marine life and maritime habitat protection. 

“See relics pulled from the deep, build a boat, follow Civil War battles fought along the coast, cast a line and learn about the state’s seafood industry, sail or paddle along waterways, and retrace Blackbeard’s voyages and ultimate demise,” according to the website.

Graveyard of the Atlantic August programs

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras is named in honor of the thousands of shipwrecks that rest in the waters off North Carolina’s coast and is dedicated to the preservation and presentation of the state’s coastal and shipwreck history.

Located at at 59200 Museum Drive in Hatteras, the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free, though donations are appreciated. For more information, visit graveyardoftheatlantic.com or call 252-986-0720.

The programs are being offered at no charge and registration is not required.

Kids Crafts 10:30 a.m. to noon Aug. 4, Aug. 11, Aug. 18 and Aug. 25. Join staff and volunteers from the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum for free crafts on Mondays in the museum library/education space located off the lobby.

Salty Dawgs Lecture Series are held at 11 a.m. every Tuesday and feature presentations on North Carolina maritime history and culture.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Aug. 5. Join National Park Service Ranger Ann-Marie to learn about the 1870 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which “protects one of the most hazardous sections of the Atlantic Coast,” according to the National Park Service.

Jockeys Ridge State Park Aug. 12. Join North Carolina Park Ranger Austin Paul to learn about the tallest living sand dune system on the Atlantic coast and is located in Dare County.

“Shipwreck Rescues of the Outer Banks” Aug. 19. Join historian James Charlet for the final program in a three-part presentation on his new book, “Shipwreck Rescues of the Outer Banks,” which chronicles the United States Life-Saving Service’s missions and rescues off the North Carolina coast.

“Changing Sands and Rising Seas: The Future of Maritime Heritage” Aug. 26. Maddie Roth, a doctoral candidate in East Carolina University’s Integrated Coastal Sciences Program will discuss opportunities to better understand and preserve shipwreck sites, aids to navigation, and the maritime traditions of the state’s coast.

Beaufort’s August programs

During summer break, the museum offers Summer Science School courses designed to give children hands-on experiences with North Carolina’s environment, history, and culture. Some courses take place outside the main museum building and may involve travel. Advance registration is required, which can be done online.

Summer Science School: Seashore Life II is set for 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 5-7. For fifth and sixth graders, students will investigate estuarine habitats, plants and animals through field and lab studies. The course includes a field trip to the Rachel Carson Reserve, water quality testing, plankton identification and other activities. Class fee is $120, or $108 for Friends of the Museum

Summer Science School: Pirates! 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 7-8. Youngsters entering first and second grades will be able to learn about life at sea and how pirates lived. The crew will build their own boats, set the rules of the ship, and go on a treasure hunt to find the hidden treasure. Class fee is $90, or $81 for Friends of the Museum.

Limited scholarships are available. Email courtney.felton@dncr.nc.gov or call 252-504-7758 for more information.

Though the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort is currently closed for construction, the Carteret County-based facility will continue to offer programs in the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center across the street in the downtown area and other nearby locations.

Build a Boat in a Day 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Aug. 2, Aug. 16 and Aug. 22 in the watercraft center. Teams will assemble a 12-foot-long, flat-bottomed plywood boat from a prepared kit suitable for paddling. Minimum age is 8 and the teams of no more than four people must include at least one adult. Course fee is $650, or $585 for Friends of the Museum members, which sponsors the program. Course size is limited, and registration is required and can be done online or by calling 252-504-7758.

Introduction to Wooden Boat Building 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Aug. 9-10. Participants will learn about planking methods, both carvel and lapstrake, and use of appropriate fasteners. After two days, you will have the knowledge, skill, and confidence to choose a design and style of boat to build on your own.  Class fee is $200, or $180 for Friends of the Museum. Minimum age is 16. Course size is limited, and registration is required.

Kids’ Cove: Whales 9 to 11 a.m. Aug. 13. The drop-in program for ages 5 and younger and their caregivers takes place in the Beaufort Train Depot at 614 Broad St. Participation is free but registration is preferred.

Hiking and History on Shackleford Banks 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 19. The guided hike on Shackleford Banks, a part of Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County, is for ages 12 and older. Participants will take a ferry to an undeveloped barrier island where they will hike about 1.5 miles along sandy terrain. All those under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Cost is $35 and $31.50 for Friends of the Museum. Register online by noon the day before the program.

“By Hook or By Crook, Women Pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read” 11 a.m. Aug. 21. Associate Education Curator Christine Brin will share what is known about the lives of these women, how they came to be pirates, and their fates. This program is part of the museum’s Maritime Heritage Lecture Series that features talks about the rich maritime history, coastal environment and culture. The in-person only talk will take place in the Fort Macon Coastal Education Center in Atlantic Beach. Admission is free. Registration is not required. 

Kayak the Salt Marsh 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 26. Basic kayak instruction and safety lessons on shore are followed by a 1.5-mile paddle through the salt marsh in sit-in cockpit touring kayaks, or bring your own. The program is for ages 12 and older. Participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. All must know how to swim and some kayak experience is recommended. Cost is $35 or $30 if you bring your own kayak and $27-31.50 for Friends of the Museum. Register online by noon the day prior to the program.

Southport August programs

The North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport, which collects, preserves and interprets material culture pertinent to the maritime history of the Lower Cape Fear region.

The location has two public programs scheduled for this month.

Go Fish! is set for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 2. part of the Skipper’s Crew series at the Southport facility, which features hands-on activities and take-home crafts focusing on combining arts and history. Participants can fish for a wooden fish swimming in a sea of blue tissue paper, then decorate your fish and take it home. The program is for all ages, but specifically geared toward younger visitors.

Lights will be dimmed and interactive displays muted during the first two hours to provide a calmer environment for those with sensory sensitivities.

Maritime Weapons of the 18^th Century 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 16. Join a costumed interpreter at the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport to learn about weapons used at sea during the 1700s. The program is part of the museum’s Deep Dive into History series. The free drop-in program is designed to give visitors a deeper understanding of our shared past. Visitors can interact one-on-one with the presenter at any time during the program.

For more information on either program being offered at no charge, visit ncmaritimemuseumsouthport.com or call 910-477-5151.

A noted wildlife biologist and zoologist involved in researching North Atlantic right whales and credited for his work to conserve manatees, sea turtles and other endangered species has died.

The Clearwater Marine Aquarium announced Tuesday that Dr. James “Buddy” Powell, chief zoological officer at the aquarium and executive director of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute, or CMARI, died Saturday, July 19, after a brief illness.

Powell, along with other CMARI scientists, collected more than 20 years of aerial survey data on North Atlantic right whales, an endangered species with only 360 individuals remaining, according to the announcement. Working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, CMARI’s data from wintertime, daily flights from North Carolina to Florida, the only known calving areas for this species, led to ship speed reduction, expanded habitat protection and halted whale mortality in the Southeast, the organization said.

For more than 50 years, Powell approached conservation issues using science and education and resulted in coastal protected areas in Florida, West Africa, Belize and Cuba.

“Buddy’s passion for marine research and his unwavering dedication made a lasting impact — not only on our mission, but on all of us who had the privilege of knowing him,” said Clearwater Marine Aquarium CEO Joe Handy. “Buddy was an integral part of our CMA and CMARI family. His intelligence, warmth and leadership will be deeply missed.”

For 20 years, CMARI researchers and staff were involved in rescuing and releasing manatees, along with other organizations in the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership. Powell long dreamed of making the Clearwater Marine Aquarium a home for manatees and spent years chasing that dream, navigating government funding and rallying private donors.

The CMA in August opened its Manatee Rehabilitation Center and welcomes manatees in need of care.

A native of Crystal River, Florida, Powell’s work began in the 1970s with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as a biologist and manatee specialist. In 1986, he moved to West Africa where he studied manatees and forest elephants for the Wildlife Conservation Society. He moved to Belize in the 1990s to manage WCS’s Glover’s Reef Marine Research Station.

Upon his return to Florida, Powell administered the state’s research program on marine mammals and sea turtles for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. In 2001, he became a vice president at Wildlife Trust where he oversaw the aquatic and national divisions. Powell also conducted research with North Atlantic right whales and the recently discovered Rice’s whales.

In 2008, Powell co-founded the Sea to Shore Alliance, a research, education and conservation organization, to improve the health and productivity of coastal environments for the endangered species and human livelihoods that depend on them. In 2019, Powell joined CMA as vice president of research and conservation when Sea to Shore Alliance merged with Clearwater Marine Aquarium. Powell remained executive director of Sea to Shore Alliance doing business as CMARI after the merger.

Powell was pivotal in creating the Right Whale Festival in Fernandina Beach, Florida, during the past 17 years. Co-hosted by Clearwater Marine Aquarium and NOAA Fisheries, the festival is held each November to celebrate the arrival of North Atlantic right whales as they migrate to the waters around Amelia Island from November through April. Each year, the event educates more than 25,000 people about these critically endangered whales and the efforts to protect them.

He was recently involved in research on Rice’s whales, a new species found in the Gulf of Mexico. He also helped begin the CMA Speaker Series in 2023, bringing Dr. Sylvia Earle, world-renowned oceanographer, to CMA in May.

Powell is survived by his wife, Maureen, and daughter, Morgan “Catherine.”

Powell received his bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from the University of Florida, his Master’s in marine affairs from the University of Washington, and his doctorate in zoology from the University of Cambridge in England.

He was the recipient of the prestigious Pew Award in Marine Conservation in 2000, has been featured on “Champions of the Wild” and National Geographic’s “Wild Chronicles” documentaries, and has been honored with multiple awards and certificates. Powell has authored two books, numerous scientific publications and popular articles.

The National Weather Service Office staff in Newport invites newcomers to the area, anyone who has never experienced a hurricane and those who would like to learn more about preparedness to attend one of three upcoming community forums.

The first is at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Havelock City Hall, 1 Governmental Ave.

The event will include a presentation from a meteorologist with the National Weather Service on hurricanes and their effects on this part of the state.

“We will go over why you should never focus on just the category of the storm along with discussing all of the impacts any tropical cyclone can bring. We will cover the hurricane outlook for the season while emphasizing it only takes one storm to make an impact on your life,” NWS staff said.

Subsequent community forums are set for 11 a.m. Monday July 28, at the Greene County Senior Center, 104 Greenridge Road in Snow Hill, and at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 11, at the Jones County Civic Center, 832 N.C. Highway 58 in Trenton.

Register online to attend any of the three upcoming forums, which are free to attend and open to all.

The events will conclude with a community discussion and the opportunity to ask questions.

Organizers of an afternoon fundraiser set for later this month invite folks to raise a glass to growing seafood and meet area aquaculture specialists to learn more about “a growing opportunity.”

Nacho Brewery in Morehead City is hosting the event set for 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 26, at 2900-6 Arendell St., in the Morehead Plaza shopping center. All proceeds from beer and food sales will go directly to the Carteret Community College Aquaculture Technology Program.

Organizers said the event will support workforce development and promote the future of sustainable seafood in coastal communities.

According to the college’s website, “Aquaculture is defined simply as the farming and husbandry of aquatic organisms. This can be growing seafood or ornamental specimens for commercial sale, environmental enhancement, research, or education.”

The college says its program curriculum is comprehensive, covering hatchery, grow-out, processing and marketing.

“Students learn practical skills that prepare them for future employment in a variety of industries or for continuation at a four-year institution,” according to the college.

The fundraiser will include hands-on experiences with marine life, marine science trivia and delicious craft beer brewed in Carteret County.

It’s also possible to donate online to support the college program, just select “Aquaculture Program” from the options.

MANTEO — Dare County commissioners and school board officials gathered Wednesday and plunged their ceremonial shovels into the ground at the south end of the College of the Albemarle campus here, marking the start of construction of the Dare County Early College building.

Early college programs are part of a state-authorized system created to “expand students’ opportunities for educational success through high quality instructional programming,” according to the 2003 state law known as the Innovative Education Initiatives Act.

With an estimated cost between $21 and $25 million, the building here is scheduled for completion in winter 2026. This year’s first class of incoming freshman will utilize unused classroom space in the College of the Albemarle building.

“We’re building more than just a school on this ground today. We’re building opportunity,” said County Commission Chair Bob Woodard in remarks welcoming Dare County Schools leadership, elected officials and others who were instrumental in moving the project forward.

Officials donned red and white hard hats and wielded gold-painted shovels for the event held at the corner of 205 U.S. Highway 64/264 S. and Grenville Street.

Construction costs for the early college building are to be paid from a state lottery fund that can only be used for school capital improvement projects. The North Carolina early college program, known officially as Cooperative Innovative High Schools, has been in place since 2004 with more than 80 of the state’s 134 school systems now participating.

The program is geared to help students at risk of dropping out of high school, first-generation college students, and students who would benefit from accelerated learning opportunities.

State wildlife officers will be ramping up their presence on North Carolina waterways this weekend in an effort to curb impaired boating.

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission Law Enforcement Division officers are participating in a national campaign known as Operation Dry Water July 4-6.

The campaign, developed through the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators and the U.S. Coast Guard, is designed to heighten enforcement and awareness about the dangers of boating under the influence.

“Boating under the influence continues to be a serious and preventable problem,” wildlife officer Lt. Forrest Orr said in a release. “Our goal is to create a safer environment for all recreational boaters, paddlers, and waterway users.”

The Independence Day holiday weekend is typically a busy one on North Carolina waters, which often equates to an increase in boating incidents and fatalities. And, alcohol use in the “leading known contributing factor” in boating deaths, according to the wildlife agency.

Similar to laws that pertain to the road, it is illegal to operate a recreational vessel with an alcohol concentration of .08 or higher, “or while being appreciably impaired by alcohol, drugs or other impairing substances,” according to the release.

State wildlife officers during last year’s campaign removed 37 people from the water who were boating while impaired.

Since January, 39 boating incidents have occurred in the state. Three of those were fatal. Last year, boating incidents in North Carolina resulted in 15 fatalities.

Boaters are reminded to operate their vessels sober and to wear a life jacket when on or around the water.

Additional information about the program is available on the agency’s boating safety webpage.

Cape Lookout National Seashore’s first Horse Sense and Survival tour for the year is slated for the morning of Saturday, June 21.

Leading the tour is seashore’s Resource Manager Dr. Sue Stuska, who will explain the relationships, behavior and survival of these wild horses on Shackleford Banks.

“This is an excellent opportunity for visitors to witness and begin to understand the wild horses,” Cape Lookout Superintendent Jeff West said in a release. “The Shackleford horses are truly a unique aspect of what makes Cape Lookout National Seashore a special place.”

The program is free, but space is limited to 20 participants. Reservations are required and can be made at CALO Wild Horse Reservations. For reservations and to ask questions, call the park at 252-728-2250, ext. 0.  

After reserving a spot with the park, reserve a ferry tickets, which are $24 for adults and $17 for ages 3 to 11, at www.islandexpressferryservices.com or by calling 252-728-7433.

Participants will need to gather at the Island Express Ferry Service depot in Beaufort by 8:15 a.m. June 21. The ferry will depart at 8:30 a.m. and head toward the soundside shore of west Shackleford Banks to walk a moderate-level trek off the beaten path to find horses to watch from a distance. The ferry will return around 12:30 p.m.

Seashore staff recommend visitors arrive prepared for a day in the sun, climbing dunes, walking through brush, and navigating in deep sand. Shoes that protect your feet and stay on in the mud are required. Participants should bring water, snacks, bug repellent, sunscreen, sun hat, binoculars, and camera with a telephoto lens in a daypack or shoulder bag.

Additional tours are scheduled for July 20, Aug. 3 and Sept. 20. October and November programs will be announced. For more information, including meeting places, times, and ferry costs on the tours planned for later this year, see http://go.nps.gov/horsewatch.

Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center has announced its summer Parlor Talk Series schedule.

The museum is headquartered on Harkers Island, and has a satellite location at 806 Arendell St., in downtown Morehead City, where the talks will take place.

The talks are scheduled for 2 p.m. every Thursday from June 19 to Aug. 28 and will be in the upstairs parlor. No reservations are needed. Accessible accommodations are available.

The following is the 2025 summer series schedule:

• June 19 “The Education of an Island Boy: Growing up on Harkers Island” with author Joel Hancock.
• June 26 “Menhaden: A Biologist’s Thirty-Two Year Journey with the Fish and the Fishery” with author Joe Smith.
• July 3 Horses of Shackleford Banks with Cape Lookout National Seashore Wildlife Biologist Dr. Sue Stuska and Foundation for Shackleford Horses.
• July 10 “Growing Up in Old Beaufort” with Geoffrey Adair, lifelong resident.
• July 17 “Eastern North Carolina’s Baseball Heroes” with Frank Tursi, author of “Tar Heel Boys of Summer: North Carolina’s Major League Ballplayers.”
• July 24 “Songs & Stories About the People I Love” with Connie Mason.
• July 31 New programs at Carteret Community College with its president, Dr. Tracy Mancini.
• Aug. 7 “Language and Life on Ocracoke” with two of its authors, Candy Gaskill and Walt Wolfram.
• Aug. 14 “The Value of Diamonds: A coastal North Carolina Down East Novel” with author, Lura J. Salter Hill.
• Aug. 21 “Flooding – More Than You Know” with researchers James Collins, Ryan McCune, Dr. Katherine Anarde and others.
• Aug. 28 “Fish House Liars Keep Telling The Tales” with Rodney Kemp and Chris Yeomans.

The satellite site and gift shop in downtown Morehead City is open year-round and carries curated collection of locally sourced gifts, art, home and outdoor decor, books, jewelry and much more.

The museum at 1785 Island Road on Harkers Island houses permanent exhibits on Carteret County’s heritage and history, traveling exhibits and serves as a community meeting place.

Past parlor talks are archived for viewing on the museum’s website.

Nowadays it’s not uncommon to hear about human-alligator encounters in southeastern North Carolina.

That’s why the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission this week launched “GatorWise,” an informational outreach initiative to educate the public on how to live responsibly with alligators.

Most calls about alligators to the agency’s Wildlife Hotline come from New Hanover and Brunswick counties, coastal counties that experienced exponential development since American alligators were delisted in 1987 from the federal endangered species list, according to the commission.

“As development continues to expand into once-remote areas where alligators live, we need to become GatorWise in order to safely share the land with this species,” commission Wildlife Biologist Alicia Wassmer said in a release.

“Urbanization is projected to increase at exponential rates in areas where alligator habitat occurs,” Wassmer continued. “This continuous conversion of natural spaces, coupled with a constant influx of newcomers who may not know that alligators are here or aren’t familiar with alligator behavior, have amplified the need for state wildlife resource agencies to proactively connect residents and visitors with vital information on how to coexist responsibly with the alligators that live in these communities.” 

American alligators live in 11 southeastern states, including North Carolina, which is the northern-most region in which they reside in the United States.

Wildlife agencies in all of those states on Monday launched the program, which emphasizes following six GatorWise Basics:

• Assume alligators are present in water bodies.
• Do not discard fish or food scraps in those waters.
• Never feed, harass, capture or handle an alligator.
• Supervise small children near water and keep pets leashed and away from the water’s edge.
• Always observe warning signs when you are in or near the water.
• Avoid swimming in areas with dense vegetation and swim only in daylight.

Additional information is available on the commission’s website.

This is one trap you may not mind falling for.

The annual “Flytrap Frolic,” what organizers call a one-of-a-kind celebration of Venus flytraps and other carnivorous plants, is scheduled 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 7, at the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden, 3800 Canterbury Road, Wilmington.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust is hosting the family-friendly event that allows participants to get up close with meat-eating plants, learn about their adaptations, and why it’s important to protect their natural habitats.

The event will include carnivorous plant-themed games, arts and crafts, and face painters. Garden guides will be on hand to answer questions and help guests find carnivorous plants in the garden.

Ethically-sourced flytraps will be for sale to benefit the land trust on a first-come, first-served basis.

Anyone interested in volunteering to help at the event may sign up online.

Masonboro Island Reserve in Wilmington was the latest to be highlighted in a multiyear campaign raising awareness of the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and the role of these natural coastal areas.

State officials and guests, including N.C. Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, took a guided boat tour Friday of the reserve followed by a short walk along a trail as part of “Discover the N.C. Coastal Reserve” campaign. This was the fourth stop of the campaign that spotlights the role of the state’s 10 Coastal Reserve sites and programs.

The N.C. Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve is a department of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management, or DCM. The May 16 afternoon tour kicked off with remarks by DEQ officials, including the department’s Secretary Reid Wilson and Division Director Tancred Miller.

“The Masonboro Island Reserve and our other Coastal Reserve locations are great places to hike, swim, paddle, learn, and relax. Here, people from all over can connect and recharge with nature, all while boosting tourism and our local economy,” Wilson said in a release. “It’s critical that we restore and protect coastal habitats, and I’m proud that our state is a national leader in these efforts. Thanks to our partners, volunteers, commission and advisory committee members, and community leaders who help to preserve these coastal lands and waters for current and future generations.”

The Masonboro Island Reserve, which sits across the Intracoastal Waterway from the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science, spans more than 5,600 acres comprised largely of marsh and tidal flats. It stretches nearly 8.5 miles, and includes 10 different habitat types, including those for various species of concern and threatened species such as loggerhead and green sea turtles, American oystercatchers, black skimmers, Wilson’s plovers, least turns and diamondback terrapins.

“Across our sites and through our stewardship, research, education, and training programs, our work is incumbent on the range of partnerships we foster to accomplish the exciting and challenging work of coastal management,” Coastal Reserve Program Manager Rebecca Ellin said in the release. “A special thanks to each of you who we work with to accomplish our mission. It is our hope that today provides the opportunity to connect and reconnect with this special place, the Masonboro Island Reserve, and with the people and work of many who protect it now and into the future.”

Programs spotlighted at the Masonboro Island Reserve included the science and monitoring at the site and how that information is used to educate and inform decision making, and how the area provides natural buffers to waves and storms, which enhances community resilience.

CMS Executive Director Ken Halanych and William “Bill” Raney, a member of the Masonboro Island Reserve Local Advisory Committee, also spoke.

“UNCW’s Marine Quest program has integrated Reserve-collected environmental data into academic curricula which helps students apply theoretical concepts to real-world environmental events,” Halanych said. ”UNCW’s Research Hatchery Operations team partners with the Reserve to support continuous water quality monitoring at the CMS pier which helps Hatchery staff monitor source water quality for life support systems and supports numerous ongoing research projects in the UNCW Research Sanctuary. This partnership helps grow our coastal workforce.”

The division is celebrating this year the 40th anniversary of North Carolina’s National Estuarine Research Reserve, which is designated by the state and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to protect special places, including Masonboro Island Reserve.

The “Discover the N.C. Coastal Reserve” campaign is to run through 2026 and include guests invited to visit reserves to learn more about the ecosystems they protect and the work occurring at each site. The next tour is expected to take place in the fall.

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras is launching a summer-long series of talks on all things Outer Banks.

Kicking off next week, the Salty Dawgs Lecture Series welcomes guest lecturers to speak every Tuesday morning through Aug. 26 about topics that may touch on everything from local families, foods, and lifestyles to shipwrecks, pirates or lost colonies.

The Rev. Bart Muller will begin the summer series at 11 a.m. Tuesday in his talk about the 20th New York United Turner Rifles, a New York-established regiment whose foreign-speaking members participated in the landing and battles of Forts Hatteras and Clark. Muller will discuss the origins of the regiment’s movement, German nationalism, immigration and its history after Hatteras, according to a release.

The complete schedule for this year’s Salty Dawgs Lecture Series is on the museum’s website.

Reservations are not required for the event being offered at no charge. For additional information call 252-986-0723.

Volunteers with the Holden Beach Turtle Watch Program are getting ready to offer weekly educational sea turtle programs this summer.

Often called the “Turtle Patrol,” the program was founded in 1989 to monitor and protect the sea turtle population on Holden Beach, a seaside town in Brunswick County. This all volunteer, nonprofit conservation organization operates under the authority of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

The family-oriented Turtle Talks are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. June 18 and be held each Wednesday until Aug. 13. A volunteer will speak, a slideshow and film will be shown, and the night will close out with a time to ask questions.

The evening program “focuses on the life cycle of the sea turtle and how the Turtle Patrol aids in the preservation of sea turtles, a volunteer will speak about nesting sea turtles, what to look for when visiting the beach, and current nest information,” organizers explained in a release.

The first Children’s Turtle Time for the summer is scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, and is to take place every Wednesday through Aug. 6.

“The program introduces young children to the world of sea turtles through hands-on play, games, books and puzzles,” organizers said.

This program is designed for two age groups, 3-4 and 5-6. An adult should remain with their child during the 45-minute program. If a family has two or more children that fall within both age groups, organizers advise that two adults attend.

Volunteers are available to speak to clubs, classrooms and organizations to promote awareness during the educational outreach program “Turtle Talk on the Road.” Contact theoutreach program coordinator by email at outreach@hbturtlewatch.org for more information or to schedule a program.

Sea turtles nest on Holden Beach from mid-May through August, and their nests hatch July through October. When the 2025 turtle season began May 1, Turtle Patrol members started patrolling the island each morning looking for signs of a nesting sea turtle crawl on the beach.

For details about these educational programs, number of nests, and recent news, www.hbturtlewatch.org.

The public will have a chance to see what happens at the Coastal Studies Institute and East Carolina University Integrated Coastal Programs during an open house later this month.

The event is offered at no charge from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 17, on the ECU Outer Banks Campus. The campus is about a mile from the intersection of U.S. Highway 64 and N.C. Highway 345 in Wanchese.

Research and education initiatives on the campus span a range of coastal topics, from nearshore estuaries to the offshore waters along the continental shelf.

ECU’s Integrated Coastal Programs focuses on coastal and marine research, education, and engagement using an interdisciplinary approach and scientific advancements to provide effective solutions to complex problems.

The Coastal Studies Institute is a multi-institutional research partnership led by East Carolina University, in collaboration with North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Wilmington and Elizabeth City State University.

Attendees will have the opportunity to tour the campus, learn about current research and educational programs, take part in family-friendly activities, and interact with faculty and staff from East Carolina University, Coastal Studies Institute and partner organizations.

Organizers said that visitors will have the opportunity to meet the following:

• Coastal geoscientists researching the processes that drive coastal change, their impact on communities, and ways to build resilience in the face of increasing coastal hazards.
• Ecologists studying estuarine systems and fisheries, their inputs, and how to ensure healthy coastal ecosystems for the future.
• Oceanographers and coastal engineers exploring ways to harness renewable ocean energy, such as the Gulf Stream and wave power, through new technologies that expand North Carolina’s energy portfolio.
• Social scientists working with coastal residents, visitors, and social data to understand the impacts of coastal change on communities while developing new, sustainable economies.
• Maritime archaeologists discovering and researching shipwrecks using advanced technologies, while celebrating the maritime heritage of eastern North Carolina.
• Faculty and staff engaging the local community and inspiring the next generation of scientists and decisionmakers through educational programming focused on technology, engineering, art, math and science, or STEAM.

Sierra Club North Carolina‘s Croatan Group has several outreach events planned for this spring.

The environmental organization is to host an Earth Day celebration this week at Carteret Community College, as well as two hikes to see carnivorous plants on nationally protected lands, and a talk on native plants in early May.

Earth Day Learn and Play is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday in the Bryant Student Center on the Morehead City campus. There will be hands-on activities and information booths, a time to “talk trash,” review native plants, and view the living shoreline.

Talks are scheduled on the hour during the Earth Day program, starting with “Wind Energy in NC” at 11 a.m., “Rooftop Solar 101” at noon, “Solar Users’ Experiences” at 1 p.m. and “Training the Workforce of Tomorrow” will close out the day at 2 p.m. Visit the Sierra Club’s website for a full schedule. The college’s Energy and Conservation Committee is partnering with the Croatan Sierra Club on the event.

The nonprofit group is offering the first of two walks to see carnivorous plants in the Croatan National Forest from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 26. The second walk is from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 24, both starting off N.C. Highway 24 in the Newport area.

“This area is dominated by pocosin bogs and large tracts of well maintained longleaf pine forests and savannas, an ecosystem that once covered millions of acres of the Southeast but has now nearly disappeared because development, logging and fire suppression,” organizers said.

The trip will consist of short, easy walks from various parking sites.

Attendees will be able to see at least 13 species of carnivorous plants, including the Venus flytrap, a variety heaths, orchids and other rare wildflowers, “We are holding two such excursions a month apart, as we expect to find different suites of wildflowers in bloom each time,” such as pitcher plants, organizers continued.

There is no cost to participate but participants must sign a waiver. Participants should wear long pants and substantial footwear. Nonmembers are welcome to join the walks. To register, contact Ralph Tramontano at rrtramon@gmail.com. Specific instructions on how to get to the first site will be given to participants when they sign up.

Gardeners wanting to incorporate native plants will have a chance to learn how from a master gardener starting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 2900 Bridges St. in Morehead City.

During “The Power of Native Plants,” Carol Peoples is to talk about how to create a more welcoming habitat for birds, butterflies and bees. in addition to being a master gardener in Carteret County, Peoples is a co-leader of the Central Coastal Plain Chapter of the North Carolina Native Plant Society and serves with the Coastal Landscapes Initiative, a public-private collaboration led by North Carolina Sea Grant.

An afternoon of environmental education and activities are planned for Wilmington’s 35th annual Earth Day Festival set for noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, April 26, at Long Leaf Park.

Hosted by Wilmington Earth Day Alliance, there is no charge to attend the festival themed “Our Power, Our Planet.”

“It’s a fun-filled afternoon of live music, good food, environmental information and activities for the whole family,” organizers said. “More than 50 environmentally-minded exhibitors and vendors will be there, explaining issues that affect our environment and illustrating how you can get involved.”

Attendees can enjoy live entertainment by “old school” rock band, Au Naturales at noon, indie rock band, Tercel at 2 p.m. and reggae band, the Righteous Roots at 4 p.m.

The “Rapping Red Oak” will lead the children’s Nature Brigade Parade at 1:30 p.m. and perform children’s songs.

Anyone is welcome to join the community drummers and dancers drum circle at 3:30 p.m.

Food trucks expected to be on-site are Johnny Cheesehead, A&M’s Red Food Truck, all-vegan food trucks Well Fed Ed and Arabelle Cookin’ and chocolatier, Chocolate and S’more. Fermental Beer & Wine, Good Hops Brewing, Wilmington Brewing Co, Bill’s Brewing Co. Noni Bacca Winery and Panacea Brewing Co. will be selling beverages.

Culligan Water will provide drinking water, and guests are encouraged to bring their own reusable water bottles.

Great Outdoor Provision Co. donated a Hurricane-brand kayak that will be raffled off.

There is no charge to park on-site, or at the New Hanover County Senior Resource Center to take a shuttle to the festival.

Leashed pets are welcome in the grassy areas but not inside the tents or in the food area. Only trained service animals may accompany their humans on the WAVE Transit bus.

An invasive species of bass to North Carolina is now being found in coastal areas of the state, prompting wildlife officials to ask anglers to help stop the spread to protect native species of bass.

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission biologists say Alabama bass populations infiltrate more rivers and lakes in the state than ever before, competing with native fish and aquatic organisms.

The species, which anglers often mistaken for spotted bass or largemouth bass, were initially discovered in western North Carolina waters in the 1980s, first in Lake Chatuge, a manmade reservoir in Clay County, and then in Lake Norman.

Over the last 20 years, state wildlife biologists have documented through routine fisheries surveys the rapid spread of Alabama bass to other reservoirs and rivers, including coastal area waters such as the Roanoke and Tar rivers.

Anglers are believed to have introduced the species to state waters.

“They’re being stocked and moved to new locations by anglers who need to understand the impact it’s having to our native black bass family of largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass,” state wildlife district biologist Kin Hodges said in a release. “Populations of largemouth bass are being dramatically reduced, while North Carolina could potentially lose smallmouth and spotted bass.” 

Wildlife officials say Alabama bass can be difficult to distinguish from native bass. The Wildlife Resources Commission has posted illustrations to help anglers identify the different bass species and installed signs to help with identification and education about Alabama bass at popular fishing and boating access areas.

Anglers who catch Alabama bass should not release them back into a waterbody.

Alabama bass or, on average, smaller than largemouth bass and they interbreed with smallmouth and spotted bass, which, with time, could eliminate small and spotted bass from the fish community, according to WRC biologists.

“When we heard Alabama bass were being caught in reservoirs upstream of our coastal rivers in 2020, we anticipated we would start seeing them downstream,” WRC Coastal Region Fisheries Research Coordinator Kevin Dockendorf said in a release. “In October 2024, our fisheries biologists collected Alabama bass in the Roanoke and Tar rivers with boat electrofishing. This expansion of Alabama bass is of concern given the similarities of North Carolina’s coastal rivers to the habitats found in Alabama bass’s natural range.”

Moving or stocking fish in public waters without a state stocking permit is illegal in North Carolina. Releases of fish from live wells into waters different from where the fish were caught are also illegal.

“They are being illegally spread across the state by misguided anglers who think that they will make the fishing better,” Hodges said. “The only tools we have to minimize the damage being caused by Alabama bass are to encourage anglers not to spread them to new waters, and to harvest as many as possible in waters where they have already been introduced to minimize their damage.” 

Anglers who catch an Alabama bass in a waterbody not previously documented are asked to take photographs and report it through the N.C. Wildlife Aquatic Nuisance Species Reporting Tool or by emailing PublicInquiry-FishWildlife@ncwildlife.gov.

Illegal Alabama bass stocking may be reported by calling 800-662-7137.

There’s an opportunity for fishing enthusiasts to spend the week learning from longtime captains during the 71st annual sportfishing school scheduled for this summer on the Outer Banks.

A program of the North Carolina State University’s Continuing and Lifelong Education, the immersive five-day experience taking place June 1-5 based at the Hatteras Civic Center offers a “comprehensive journey into sport fishing, blending classroom instruction with hands-on training,” organizers said.

For two days, participants will be in the classroom learning about advanced equipment techniques and fishing methodologies and three days gaining practical, hands-on experience in both inshore and offshore Gulf Stream environments. The week closes with a celebratory banquet.

Instructors include captains Ernie Foster, Rom Whitaker, Ken Dempsey, Dr. Herbert Kirk, and Skip Blaylock, “each bringing decades of expertise and deep connections to NC State. These accomplished professionals are not just instructors but living legends in Eastern North Carolina’s fishing community, having established reputations through successful charters and prominent tournament participation,” organizers said.

The Sport Fishing School originated in Morehead City in September 1962 as a collaborative effort between N.C. State’s Department of Zoology and the College Extension Division, and has evolved into a fishing education program.

“This isn’t just a fishing school — it’s a legacy program 70 years in the making,” said Foster, lead program instructor with more than 50 years of maritime experience and an NC State alum. “We’re not just teaching techniques; we’re passing down generations of wisdom. From understanding the delicate ecosystems of North Carolina coastal waters to mastering intricate fishing techniques, we’re preserving a tradition that connects people to the ocean in one of the most profound ways.”

Open to fishing 18 and older, explore the full program schedule, instructor profiles and registration information at lifelonglearning.ncsu.edu/sport-fishing-school.

Fees are $2,495 for returning participants and $2,995 for new attendees. A discount of $300 will apply to individuals registered at the same time. First person pays the full amount, and each individual after the first person receives $300 off. Discount does not apply to the deposit.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust invites you to celebrate all things pollinators at this year’s “Pollinator Palooza!”

The event being offered at no charge will take place 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 26 at the land trust’s headquarters office, 3 Pine Valley Drive, Wilmington.

The family-friendly event will include educational activities and information regarding pollinators and native plants.

Organizers encourage attendees to arrive early for a chance to receive one of the 30 parsley plants that will be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis. There will also be seeds available for strawberry, cosmos, basil, nasturtium, and borage plants, which may be planted to create a pollinator garden.

The land trust is hosting multiple workshops with elementary afterschool programs in Onslow, Pender, New Hanover, and Brunswick counties.

The event is part of the @ncscifest, a monthlong celebration and educational program that runs through April and highlights the importance of pollinators in nature and our food supply.

If you have questions about the event you may contact Bryce Tholen at bryce@coastallandtrust.org.

The Coastal Studies Institute is partnering with the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau to host a screening of the award-winning film, “The Cigarette Surfboard,” which uses surfing as a vehicle for a message about protecting the marine environment.

The screening, part of the institute’s monthly “Science on the Sound” lecture series, is set for 6 p.m. April 17 at the Pioneer Theater in Manteo. A pre-screening reception is set for 5 p.m. in the Pioneer Theater courtyard and is to feature a food truck and beverages available for purchase.

The lecture series brings together perspectives from across the state and highlights coastal topics in North Carolina and beyond. 

Admission is free, but seating is limited, and attendees must register in advance.

“The Cigarette Surfboard,” according to the institute’s announcement, “takes viewers around the world on a surfboard built from cigarette butts to explore the importance of the ocean and what an inspiring cast of professional surfers are doing to protect it. The film is solution-driven with an optimistic outlook for the future of our planet – it sparks a dialogue, encouraging audiences to explore how they can take action in their personal lives and local communities. Surfing is the medium, but the message is universal.”

The hand-shaped cigarette surfboards made from more than 10,000 littered cigarette butts, will be on display during the pre-party, and attendees will have a chance to meet filmmaker Ben Judkins and surfboard shaper Taylor Lane.

The film is Judkins’ directorial debut for a feature-length documentary and won “Best Feature Documentary” at the Richmond International Film Festival and Waco Independent Film Festival, and received Audience Awards at the Bend Film Festival and Cambridge Film Festival.

Led by East Carolina University, the Coastal Studies Institute in Wanchese is a multi-institutional research and educational partnership of the University of North Carolina system, including North Carolina State University, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Wilmington, and Elizabeth City State University.

Clean Cape Fear is hosting a World Water Day event to address continuing threats of PFAS and 1,4-dioxane pollution from upstream dischargers into the Cape Fear River.

The program is in partnership with the women’s ministry team at St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church and is being held at the church in Wilmington from 2-4 p.m. March 22. There is no cost to attend. Space is limited.

There will be a panel discussion from features speakers working to address upstream threats of the chemicals that are being discharged into the river, which is the drinking water source for tens of thousands of residents in the Cape Fear region.

Panelists for “Going Upstream: The Environmental State of our Waterways” include Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Ken Waldrop, senior research scholar and Research Assistant Professor Dr. Jeffrey Enders from North Carolina State University, and Southern Environmental Law Center staff attorney Hannah M. Nelson.

Discussion will include federal per- and polyfluoroalkyl standards and possible changes to those under the Trump administration, an update on how the utility is addressing PFAS and 1,4-dioxane in Wilmington’s tap water, new research on PFAS in sea foam on local beaches, and a policy update on state regulations pertaining to upstream discharges.

Speakers will make short presentations before the panel opens a question-and-answer session with the audience.

For more details visit Clean Cape Fear’s Facebook page or the church’s website.

The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher has received a multi-million-dollar grant supporting its first major renovation in more than two decades.

The New Hanover County Community Endowment announced Thursday a $7.5 million grant to the North Carolina Aquarium Society.

The money will be distributed over the next three years and injected into a more than $56 million renovation to include upgrades to exhibits and visitor amenities. Details of the project are to be unveiled this summer, according to an New Hanover County Community Endowment announcement.

“Over the next few years, the project will introduce a range of new educational and recreational opportunities for families, students, and tourists,” the group stated. “The expansion will also boost the local economy by attracting more tourism and creating new economic opportunities.”

The Fort Fisher aquarium draws 500,000 guests annually, offering an array of habitats, exhibits and interactive learning experiences centered on marine life and coastal conservation.

“The Endowment’s support will fund a more innovative and immersive on-site educational experience at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher,” Joanna Zazzali, the aquarium’s director, said in a release. “Thousands of New Hanover County students each year will benefit from expanded indoor and outdoor educational opportunities that create a deeper connection to our aquatic environments and foster greater scientific understanding.”

The endowment was established from the county’s sale of the nonprofit New Hanover Regional Medical Center to for-profit Novant Health in 2020. Funding has grown nearly $1.3 billion, resulting in millions of dollars to be awarded in grants annually.

Endowment President and CEO Dan Winslow touts the grant as a significant investment in the county’s future.

“The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher has long been a vital asset to our community, and we are proud to contribute to its continued growth and success,” he said in a release. “This grant is a good example of the Endowment’s preference for late-stage funding of major capital projects. This grant will also demonstrate how the Endowment’s investments can be magnified by participation of other funders.”

MOREHEAD CITY – Carteret Community College is launching in March its Living Shoreline Academy, a course of instruction to help people design, permit and install their own living shoreline projects.

A living shoreline is a nature-based solution for managing shoreline erosion. The technique uses natural materials such as oyster shells, granite rock or marsh plantings to work with nature in buffering the shoreline. This helps to prevent erosion, builds habitat for wildlife, and improves water quality, organizers said.

A condensed version of the Living Shoreline Academy is offered March 12.

The full Living Shoreline Academy program runs March 19-May 7.

Funding for the Living Shoreline Academy at Carteret Community College is through the U.S. Coastal Research Program in partnership with East Carolina State University and North Carolina Sea Grant.

To learn more about the program and to register, visit the Living Shoreline Academy website.

​As the hours passed, day turning into night, prospects looked bleak for a research vessel carrying scientists and students hoping to get past the mouth of the Cape Fear River to deeper waters offshore.

The R/V Cape Hatteras had essentially been stuck at the mouth of the river for about 24 hours after leaving the morning of Feb. 10 from its mooring at Cape Fear Community College in downtown Wilmington, thanks to an abrupt change in the weather.

“I won’t lie, I did not think we would make it offshore, which feels like a waste with this large vessel to just be stuck at a spot we could sample fairly easily on smaller boats,” said Dr. Bradley Tolar, an assistant professor with the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

February tends to be a month when the weather serves up less-than-ideal working conditions offshore.

Cold temperatures, whipping winds and rain proved that to be the case during the first several hours of the maiden trip of the TEAL-SHIPS project, a groundbreaking expedition to study shore-to-sea habitats.

TEAL-SHIPS, an acronym for this mouthful: Transect Expedition to Assess Land-to-Sea Habitats via Interdisciplinary Process Studies, will allow researchers the opportunity to get an understanding of the biological, chemical and physical changes in habitats from the mouth of the Cape Fear River to the Gulf Stream’s warm waters.

This particular area of North Carolina’s coast has largely remained understudied since the 1990s. And those previous studies of the area between the 1970s and 1990s focused primarily on nearshore ecosystems.

Now, through a series of cruises (no, not the kind where mai tais are served on the pool deck), researchers of different coastal marine science disciplines hope to build a baseline in understanding how changes in the Gulf Stream flow affect the ocean’s food chain and critical habitats between the coastline and Atlantic continental shelf.

Tolar is spearheading the venture, one that was able to come to fruition through a $1.5 million General Assembly-funded grant through the University of North Carolina System Research Opportunities Initiative, a program that focuses on several research areas including marine and coastal science.

TEALS-SHIPS includes principal investigators from UNCW, the UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University and East Carolina University.

Over the course of the next two years, researchers and some of their students will embark on an expedition about every three months, setting course to a series of stations mapped from the river’s mouth to the Gulf Stream. By going out every three months, researchers aim to capture any potential changes in each season of the year.

“Even though this is only giving us two years, the goal is to write grants to continue sampling further, maybe not to this level or this frequency, but just to have a better understanding of how the coast and offshore are connected,” Tolar said.

The Gulf Stream is a powerful current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico, curves around the Florida peninsula, up the Eastern Seaboard and extends toward Europe where it warms western European countries.

“But for our coastline, we know that it transports nutrients, it transports species up to our coast,” Tolar said.

The Gulf Stream oscillates and there is some thought that rising sea temperatures might actually weaken the current over time.

“We don’t really know what those consequences might be to what it transports up to our coast,” Tolar said. “If it’s transporting nutrients that feed our coastal habitats, which we care about a lot with our state’s blue economy, if it weakens or oscillates farther offshore rather than coming inshore, we would want to know.”

During each cruise, physical oceanographers will collect fine-scale water samples to get a sense of how the Gulf Stream current is moving and any changes in that movement over the course of a year.

Two, 20-minute-long fish trawls will capture as much fish as possible at each of the project’s six major stations, each of which include vastly different types of habitat. Researchers will count all of the species captured during the trawl sweeps, collect 10 of each species, and measure 30 of every species.

“This allows them to get a sense of the diversity of fish, the abundance of fish, and then their variability and size to see basically how fish communities change as we go offshore,” Tolar said.

Dr. Christian Briseño-Avena, a UNCW assistant professor of biological oceanography, plankton ecologist, and another principal investigator on the project, will collect zooplankton and larger phytoplankton to study how those organisms change over time.

“Eventually we’d like to know more about how the zooplankton, or the plankton in general, are changing or not changing for this region over longer periods of time,” he said.

Copepods “change a lot in this region,” he said. But samples of the tiny crustaceans collected from this region are sparse.

Briseño-Avena said he is learning as he goes on each expedition, targeting smaller plankton, fish larvae and zooplankton scooped up from the seafloor to the surface in “bongo nets,” aptly named because they are shaped similar to the open bottomed hand drum.

During TEAL-SHIPS maiden cruise earlier this month, he was met with some surprises when the bongo nets surfaced back aboard the R/V Cape Hatteras, a 135-foot oceangoing research vessel used as a hands-on training tool for marine technology students at Cape Fear Community College.

He wasn’t expecting to see in the winter what turned out to be a large amount of ichthyoplankton, which are the eggs and tiny larvae of fish.

His students have already begun the tedious task of extracting and identifying the different groups and species of plankton he collected. The plankton will be preserved in ethanol and used to build a library-like catalogue of samples that will be available to future coastal marine scientists.

He and Tolar agree the expedition was a success, despite the weather challenges that cut the initial trip by a half day and covered four of the six stations. The ship traveled just under 75 miles offshore, making it to the Gulf Stream where the water temperatures were 30 degrees warmer than those near shore.

“At least we confirmed if we were able to do as much as we did in our 18-hour weather window we’ll be fine for our future expeditions,” Tolar said. “We’ll have no problem getting all the way out there. We learned that we could do it and we learned how to be more efficient about it.”

UNCW’s Center for Marine Science is in the process of acquiring its own, larger research vessel. The 73-foot vessel is expected to be complete in the spring of 2026. TEAL-SHIPS project principal investigators hope to use the new vessel during their final two expeditions covered by the current grant.

Tolar hopes to tap additional funding sources for the program to collect samples beyond two years.

“If we’re able to get more funding in the future we can compare the changes year-to-year,” he said. “Even if not, we have a really nice study that shows this is what’s happening here off the coast of Wilmington and that can connect how other folks along the East Coast are measuring their samples.”

Clarification: Dr. Smallwood is a descendant of the Tuscarora people, not the Cherokee. During his presentation when he said “we were Cherokees” he was explaining that many Native descendants assumed that Cherokee was their heritage. This story has been updated for clarity.

MOREHEAD CITY — About 50 made their way to Mug Shot Caffeine and Cocktails on a chilly Saturday afternoon in mid-January to hear Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood explain “The History of the Coree and Neusiok Native Americans of Carteret County, North Carolina.”

Smallwood was the first to present for Coastal Carolina Riverwatch’s new initiative, “Cultural Perspectives Series: Coastal Indigenous Communities and Ecological Wisdom.” The nonprofit organization works to protect the water bodies, estuaries and coastline in the White Oak River Basin, mostly in Carteret, Jones, Onslow and Pender counties.

“I’m still just an ol’ country boy from eastern North Carolina, and that’s never left me, and it’s still a part of who I am,” Smallwood began. “I grew up in Bertie County in Indian Woods,” which was the old Tuscarora reservation established in 1717.

Now the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at North Carolina Central University in Durham, Smallwood has spent his career studying the relationships among African Americans, Native Americans and Europeans in eastern North Carolina during the colonial and early antebellum periods.

During his presentation when he said that while growing up in Indian Woods, “we were Cherokees” and “grandma was Cherokee, right?” he was illustrating that many Native descendants assumed their heritage was Cherokee because the Tuscaroras’ history had largely been erased.

Smallwood said that he never fully understood who the Tuscarora and other Native groups in eastern North Carolina were until he was a student at N.C. Central, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

“We didn’t know anything much about our community, other than we’ve always been from there,” he said. “I knew all my family and all my people, but we didn’t know very much about the history of the area beyond our family lore and family stories.”

In a class on state history he read “North Carolina: The History of a Southern State,” written by “two great professors out of Chapel Hill,” Hugh Talmage Lefler and Albert Ray Newsome.

They mentioned his community, Indian Woods, by name in the first chapter, and “I said to myself, if this is significant enough to be in this book from these two great Carolina scholars, then it must be significant,” Smallwood explained. This inspired him to commit his life to learning and researching as much as possible about Native peoples, particularly Tuscaroras and those in eastern North Carolina.

Smallwood went on to earn his doctorate in early U.S. and African American history from the Ohio State University, and has held positions at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, and Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

Smallwood said that, because he was presenting in Morehead City, he narrowed the focus of his talk to the Coree and Neusiok of Carteret County, who are among several groups in the region of Iroquois origin and have a connection to the Tuscarora whom he studies.

The Iroquois are an ancient people who migrated from Central America and Mexico thousands of years ago, to what is now the Midwest, then to what is now the state of New York. Many moved south from there, following the valleys and rivers, eventually reaching eastern North Carolina.

The Coree, Neusiok, Tuscarora, Meherrin and Nottoway, who straddle the Virginia and North Carolina border, are Iroquois, or the Haudenosaunee people. “We call them Iroquois. It was a name given to them by the French, but their Native name is Haudenosaunee,” or people of the long house.

“The Iroquois said that they had a confederation,” Smallwood continued. “If you attack one of the Iroquois, you attack them all. If you attack the Mohawks, then all of the Haudenosaunee would attack you. If you attack the Tuscarora, all of the Haudenosaunee and the Allies will attack you. They were a family. They were all kin.”

The Tuscaroras were the largest and most powerful group at one time and were scattered all over eastern North Carolina, from Virginia to the Cape Fear River. The population began to decline as early as Spanish contact in the late 1400s and early 1500s. By the start of the Tuscarora War in 1711, disease and conflict caused the once-heavily inhabited region to depopulate.

There were a “host of other Indians in Coastal North Carolina,” Smallwood said, and while some were Algonquian-speaking peoples, they were allied with the Tuscaroras and Corees at the start of the Tuscarora War, “and that war was as much about control of this region.”

After the Tuscarora war in the mid-1710s, “we call it the Tuscarora diaspora,” large numbers scattered all over North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, eastern Ohio, Pennsylvania into Canada, and many returned to New York.

The Tuscarora had a sophisticated trade network spanning from the Outer Banks to as far south as Florida, as far north as Canada and as far west as Memphis.

The trading paths the Native people created are now the state roadways, like U.S. Highway 70 and N.C. 12, connecting old Native communities that are now North Carolina towns.

One reason the coastal areas were important for trade is the access to seashells. “Native Americans value seashells in the same way that Europeans value gold and silver, diamonds,” and other precious stones. Seashells had great spiritual meaning and were used as currency.

“And to trade, you had to speak Tuscarora. That was the trading language,” he said.

The maps Ralph Lane and John White illustrated when first reaching eastern North Carolina in 1584-85 show a well-established community with religious buildings, houses and gardens.

The Native people knew the land and cultivated for food or medicine different types of crops, many of which were introduced to the settlers and are still grown today. Smallwood gave the example of tobacco, which was originally ceremonial but is now a multibillion-dollar industry, corn, beans and white potatoes.

He recounted traditions from his childhood in Bertie County. Going out at night to fill up the bed of a truck with herring, having wild plums, strawberries, apples, pears and peaches, and watching his mother garden the way her mother did and her mother before her.

“I found that so many traditions and customs that we think are African American or European, are actually Native American and were transferred to us, and we have carried them on — cooking traditions, gardening habits and behaviors,” he said.

“We have passed them on from generation to generation. And we don’t even know why we did these things, but they were transferred somewhere when we were blending cultures,” Smallwood said.

The blending of cultures happened a handful of ways, including early white settlers marrying Native women, and white indentured servants and enslaved African Americans would run away places like the Great Dismal Swamp and intermix with the Native population.

“Our cultures are blended. Native, African and European, and it is what makes us Southern, what makes us American, what makes us North Carolinians,” but, “We’re different here in eastern North Carolina,” he said. “This is home, and we share a culture, and we share an identity, and that identity and that culture has been forged over hundreds of years.”

About the series

Riverwatch Executive Director Lisa Rider told Coastal Review that Smallwood’s “expertise in African American and Native American history, particularly in North Carolina, provides invaluable insights into the often-overlooked narratives that shape our understanding of the coastal communities we serve.”

The organizers launched the series that “recognizes the intertwined histories of African American and Indigenous communities in coastal North Carolina, emphasizing their shared heritage and contributions to ecological stewardship,” and are planning the next installment for this summer.

Secotan Alliance president and founder Gray Michael Parsons is scheduled to be the speaker Saturday, July 12, in Morehead City.

Riverwatch said that the Secotan Alliance’s inaugural symposium, “In the Spirit of Wingina and Beyond” held in May 2024 in Manteo inspired the cultural series. The theme for the 2025 symposium the last weekend in May is “Our Women: Leaders of Indigeneity.”

Parsons is a descendant of the Machapunga-Mattamuskeet people and has focused his efforts on honoring Indigenous leaders and promoting environmental stewardship. He is also the author of “Hope on Hatterask,” a work rooted in his Indigenous heritage.

Parsons founded the alliance “to educate the public on the traditional indigenous principles of the Secotan Alliance under the leadership of Chief Wingina.” The Secotan Alliance was first documented by the English at initial contact in 1584. The alliance territory included Dare, Hyde, Beaufort, Washington and Tyrrell counties. Chief Wingina was beheaded by the English military in June 1586 after an attempt to expand the alliance. 

Parsons told Coastal Review that his focus will be on providing a “functional definition and real world understanding of the ‘Indigenous Earth Ethic’ and the inclusive concept of what I refer to as ‘Indigen-us’.” 

He added that his goal is to empower all to see and understand their own deep indigenous ancestral identity as a part of the natural world.

“In doing so it is my hope that they will embrace and live a more sustainable life and thus one that is in what I call ‘Righteous Relationship with Creation,’” he said.

A wise man once said to me, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over a man who doesn’t know how to read at all.”

That was Mark Twain. (He didn’t actually say that to ME). So, it stands to reason then, that if you want to learn about cool stuff, then you should read about cool stuff. If you want to learn about fishing, it probably will be a good idea to read about fishing, hence I have had a fishing library for years that I refer to quite frequently.

First of all, let me say that just because a book is not about a true subject, does not mean you cannot learn lessons for life. I was once told by a person I respected that they did not read fiction because there was no reason to, because, “You can’t learn anything from it.” To this day I have no response to this person, because it’s such a dumb statement.

All the great things to learn are wrapped up in fiction. Are you not sure of how you should act when a huge opportunity comes to your door to save the world? Then read the “Lord of the Rings” and see how small people can save us all. If you’re not sure how to treat people below you on the social scale, then read “Huckleberry Finn” and notice how Jim is the only character in the whole story who has any honor.

Finally, some of the most serious lessons we have to learn in life are wrapped up in broad comedy. Remember the TV show “M*A*S*H?” Was it really just about bunch of people in the Korean War? 

Obviously, I have a copy of “The Compleat Angler” by Izaak Walton, but I don’t feel that it talks that much to me, and more recent things will do the job better.

First, let me mention the most-referenced book in my library. You might know me as a fly fisherman. The Lefty Kreh book, “Advanced Flycasting” was like a bible to me for many years. I was even lucky enough to walk into a flycasting demonstration with him one time and he worked with me on my casting extensively. I count this among some of the most important lessons of my fishing career. We lost Lefty a few years back and I still remember all the things he told me that day. Luckily, we have his books.

Something I was lucky enough up to pick up years ago was a book called “Fly Rodding the Coast.” Ed Mitchell wrote about a very basic approach to looking at the water if you don’t have a boat. It just so happens that everything he writes also applies to being in a boat. It has been an invaluable part of my library for years. I also have his follow-up called “Fly Fishing the Estuaries.”

Closer to home, Tom Earnhardt wrote a volume called “Fly Fishing the Tidewaters” that was very helpful to me years ago. Not only in learning how to fish the waters around here, but also as a guide to how to put together a useful book. The chapters on tide and how it affects fish and fishing I found especially helpful. I would stare at the full-color plates of beautifully hand-tied flies for hours to get ideas.

“Prospecting for Trout” by Tom Rosenbauer has been the book that I have recommended to people about learning to fish with a fly rod more than any other. It is a priceless resource and Rosenbauer is a treasure that keeps on giving in the form of his social media. He continues to help people learn to fish and get better at fishing.

I have more books written by John Gierach than any other. His insights and humorous view of the world around him helped many of us get into the right frame of mind when we would go fishing. He recently has also been lost to us, and I think I need to pick up all of the ones that I have and give them a reread.

Anything by Thomas McGuane, from “The Longest Silence” to “Ninety-two in the Shade” to about a million other great things, will enrich your brain and put your mind in the right place.

Probably the most popular fishing story ever written and the one most familiar to people, is “A River Runs Through It” by Norman McLean. More than likely you remember the film and I love it. I recommend everybody also read the book. The movie is adapted from McLean’s life. (It’s pretty complicated). The book focuses on his time as a young man in Montana and his relationship with his brother and his father and how they affected him and the man he became. The final paragraphs are some of the most moving words ever written by an American writer.

There are so many others; I haven’t even mentioned Lee Wulff, Robert Traver, Frank Daignault, AJ Mclane, et al., and specific guide books to fabulous fishing locations too numerous to mention that have been extremely helpful.

My hope here would not be to just give you a list of books to read, although I’m hoping that people will pick them up, but to let you know there is a world of fishing literature that is both helpful and entertaining. I would encourage anyone to collect their own works of fishing books to have as a reference and support authors of all kinds.

You might even already know, or maybe you don’t, but I myself have two books that I have written, for what that’s worth. And of course, never assume that a book that is a work of fiction does not have anything that you can learn.

One of the real pleasures of owning a high-quality fishing library is that you can always reach out to your favorite fishing authors on days when you would not be up to going. Snowing like crazy? Pick up McGuane. Sad or depressed about not getting to go fishing because of some health situation? Grab McLane. Just need a little pick-me-up and a chance to laugh about things? Check out Gierach. That’s what I do.

College-bound young women in North Carolina have an opportunity to explore over the summer careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics within the state government.

Ninth through 12th grade girls can apply using the online form now through Feb. 24 to participate in the four-week Lady Cardinal Mentorship Program that was established in 2019 by the North Carolina Department of Administration’s Council for Women and Youth Involvement.

Women comprised 35% of the science, technology, engineering and mathematic workforce in 2023 and continued to earn less than their male counterparts, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation.

“The statistics are disheartening and, if left unchanged, the gender wage gap will not begin to close until year 2060 based on data collected from the Status of Women in North Carolina Employment and Earnings Report,” NCDOA Secretary Gabriel J. Esparza said in a release. “The Lady Cardinal Mentorship Program seeks to improve the outlook for North Carolina women, allowing local students to actually see what they can be in state government STEM careers.”

Candidate interviews will take place in March and selected applicants will be notified of placement in April. The paid mentorship program will run weekdays July 7 through Aug. 1. Students are expected to work 40 hours a week and will earn a $1,700 stipend at the end of the program.

Participating state agencies include the departments of Administration, Commerce, Environmental Quality, Health and Human Services, Information Technology, Natural and Cultural Resources, Public Safety, Revenue and Transportation, as well as the Governor’s Office, the Office of State Budget Management and the Office of State Human Resources.

The Pea Island Preservation Society Inc., or PIPSI, is working to gather more stories to add to its collection preserving the history of the nation’s first all-Black manned U.S. Lifesaving Service station.

The public is invited to attend the society’s special Black History Month program, “PIPSI Past, Present and Future” at College of the Albemarle – Dare at 3 p.m. Feb. 22.

During the one-hour program, participants will be among the first to preview three videos highlighting PIPSI’s efforts to share the story of Keeper Richard Etheridge, the first Black individual to command a U.S. Lifesaving Service station, and his all-Black crew, the Pea Island Lifesavers.

After the videos, participants will be asked to discuss content and provide feedback.

Descendants of the Pea Island lifesavers and others with a special connection or interest to the station may participate in short, on-camera interviews following the program.

The preservation society is particularly interested in gleaning the stories of those who served at the station or interacted with the crew in some special way.

Etheridge was selected as the station’s keeper on Jan. 24, 1880.

Etheridge’s life, including his enslaved upbringing, his service during the Civil War with U.S. Colored Troops, and his command of the Pea Island station, have largely been the focus of stories shared about the lifesaving station.

But PIPSI’s goal is bright to light new stories and include them with existing ones about the station and what life was like during the entire era the station operated, which spanned nearly 70 years until it closed in 1947.

Anyone who wished to attend is encouraged to arrive early as seating is limited.

PIPSI Board members will be in attendance to share information and answer questions.

MOREHEAD CITY — Historian and North Carolina Central University College of Liberal Arts Dean Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood is set to deliver a lecture here Saturday exploring the history, culture and resilience of coastal Indigenous communities as Coastal Carolina Riverwatch’s guest speaker.

The nonprofit organization’s Coastal Indigenous Communities lecture series is part of an effort to educate, inspire and foster dialogue about the coastal region’s cultural heritage and environmental stewardship.

Tickets are free for the event, which is 4-6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11, at Mug Shot Caffeine and Cocktails, at 2302 Arendell St. Unit G, Morehead City. Advance registration is available online.

The Riverwatch group said Smallwood’s work has earned him recognition as a leading voice in the study of the American South, with a focus on Indigenous and African American communities. His historical expertise includes emphasis on the Tuscarora Tribe and African American landownership.

“His expertise on the history of the Tuscarora Indians, African American landownership, and the enduring environmental practices of marginalized groups offer valuable insights into the cultural and ecological legacy of our region,” according to the group.

Smallwood’s publications include “Bertie County: An Eastern Carolina History,” “The Atlas of African-American History and Politics,” and “NCAT vs. NCCU: More Than Just a Game,” which explores the cultural and historical significance of the rivalry between these two prominent historically Black institutions.

His accolades include the Gov. James E. Holshouser Jr. Award for Excellence in Public Service, and he has been awarded multiple prestigious fellowships.

Dr. Jordan Poler did not want to create an environmental problem by trying to solve one.

More than a decade ago, the University of North Carolina Charlotte professor decided to focus on chemistry that could be both sustainable and have minimum impact on the environment.

He believes he and his team of researchers have found that sweet spot, a secret sauce of nontoxic ingredients for a recipe that cleans per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and other toxins from drinking water at the point of use, think refrigerator filter for tap water.

Earlier this year, Poler was one of two UNCC professors awarded funding from NCInnovation’s grant program, which aims to help researchers at the state’s public universities get their products from lab to market.

And in an age when the idea of safe drinking water weighs heavy on North Carolinians whose water sources are contaminated by PFAS, what Poler said he has to offer could perhaps not come soon enough for consumers.

His research involves a process called ion exchange, which, in the most basic of explanations, works by trading an atom or group of atoms (ions) with ones that do not degrade the quality of drinking water.

Ion exchange is by no means a novel concept. It was initially observed by two English chemists in 1850 and did not become widely used until the 1940s.

The chemistry developed in Poler’s lab is all water-based.

“There’s really no hazardous waste for our processing and the materials that we start with are all sustainable,” Poler said.

Those materials are a cocktail of sorts that include zeolite, an inexpensive and nontoxic, natural mineral that can be dug out of the ground, and cellulose, which comes from plants, trees and bushes.

“All of the agricultural waste and food waste can be turned into that other starting materials,” Poler said. “We’re really happy about that because we started off using materials that were kind of expensive and now we’ve developed this to basically reduce the cost of those types of starting materials to nearly zero relative to where we started with.”

The result are materials that can be packed into canisters made for water filtration in everything from refrigerators to well water systems.

These materials remove chemicals including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, arsenates, chromates, heavy metals such as iron, and, of course, PFAS.

The mix of materials remove very, very low concentrations of PFAS, down to the 4 parts per trillion maximum contaminant limits the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established for six of the chemical compounds, including PFOA, PFOS, likely carcinogens, and GenX, a compound specific to the Chemours Fayetteville Works facility in Bladen County.

“It does a lot. It’s really quite a lovely hybrid, multi-use solution from a very green and sustainable approach,” Poler said.

PFAS are pervasive throughout North Carolina and the nation where they have been released into the environment by various manufacturing companies. PFAS are used in the production of a host of consumer goods, including food containers, stain- and water-resistant fabrics and firefighting foams.

Tests have detected these compounds in drinking water sources that are tapped by hundreds of public utilities throughout the state. PFAS have also been found in thousands of privately owned wells.

Exposure to PFAS has been linked to health effects including an increase in certain types of cancers, suppression of the immune system, low birth weight in infants and changes in liver function.

“It’s very hard to remove things at extremely low concentrations,” Poler said. “That’s why PFAS is such a challenge because it bioaccumulates. You can be drinking this water for years and then these problems creep in. So, ion exchange is, I think, the way to go.”

Poler founded a startup called naneXPure LLC, a company that is, by all accounts at the moment, a placeholder, but one intended to translate the technology developed in his lab into the marketplace.

He and his business partner are working with Monroe-based Goulston Technologies to broaden the drinking water purification materials crafted in his lab to industry scale.

The materials being developed in his lab are regenerable and reusable. That means that, unlike refrigerator filters that must be replaced every six months or so, what he has developed can be made good as new.

Regenerating materials not only cut down on plastic waste, but they keep used, discarded filters out of landfills and, therefore, out of leaching back into the environment.

Say you have a system that’s good for purifying 100,000 liters of water.

“It’s 100,000 liters of very low-contaminated water, but you don’t want to drink that contaminant so you’d purify it,” Poler said. “And then, when we regenerate it, we have maybe one liter of highly contaminated regenerate that can then be very easily destroyed by other types of technologies.”

The materials developed in Poler’s lab will have to be certified by the National Sanitation Foundation. Funding for that testing will be covered under the $400,000 NCInnovations grant Poler received.

Poler’s idea is that consumers would initially buy two cartridges. When materials in the first cartridge that is used needs to be replaced, that cartridge could be shipped back for regeneration in a mailer that would be provided by the company.

“It might be pie in the sky,” Poler said. “But that’s been my long-term goal.”

The technology has the potential to be used on a larger, water utility-type scale.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it had partnered with Greyhound in expanding bus service to Elizabeth City State University to make it easier for people to access the state and national intercity bus network.

“We’re thrilled about this new on-campus Greyhound stop that will benefit the university and city alike,” said Brennon Fuqua, director of the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Integrated Mobility Division, in the announcement. “This is the latest example of how working in partnership on transportation projects and goals increases access to a robust, reliable and safe transportation network statewide and, ultimately, beyond.”

The new stop at the university’s K.E. White Center offers two trips per day, seven days a week. The expanded service also increases travel options to destinations such as Richmond, Myrtle Beach, and elsewhere along NCDOT’s Coastal Plains Connector. Greyhound buses provide passengers with onboard Wi-Fi, comfortable seats, and charging outlets at every seat, the department said.

“Elizabeth City State University is proud to strengthen our partnerships within our community and beyond,” said Nichole Lewis, assistant vice chancellor and dean of students at ECSU. “This new Greyhound stop provides our students, faculty, and the wider community with affordable and reliable access to and from campus. It’s a meaningful addition that also opens greater access to our campus venues and facilities, furthering our commitment to making ECSU a choice destination for education and engagement.”

Officials said the new stop highlights ongoing work the Integrated Mobility Division has been doing to increase transportations options, access to new destinations and align transit options and schedules with other available transportation modes, like NC By Train, the state’s intercity passenger rail service and Amtrak which provides passenger rail service nationwide. It also meets NCDOT’s commitment to ensuring access to necessary goods and services, healthcare and educational opportunities, officials said.

“The new ECSU stop offers students, faculty, and community members a convenient, affordable way to stay connected,” said Karina Frayter, head of communications at Flix North America. “Working alongside ECSU and NCDOT on this project underscores our commitment to making essential travel more accessible for university communities across North America.”

Passengers can book tickets and learn more about Greyhound’s service by visiting Greyhound.com or using the Greyhound mobile app.

BEAUFORT — The Carteret County Public Library System has joined East Carolina University in a collaborative project aimed at improving access to digital technology and literacy for residents across 29 eastern North Carolina counties.

The Digital Bridges initiative is supported by $1.39 million in funding that was awarded to ECU’s College of Health and Human Performance as part of North Carolina’s first digital equity grant program. The program has allocated $9.9 million to bridge the digital divide statewide.

The Carteret County system said that the partnership will enable its library patrons to borrow iPads and Wi-Fi hotspots for free, giving them the tools they need to stay connected, build digital skills and access online resources.

Patrons will also have access to in-person digital literacy training designed to improve their ability to use technology confidently in their daily lives. Training topics will cover essential skills such as basic computer use, online safety, and health care navigation, with sessions offered at libraries, community centers, senior centers, churches and other area venues.

“We are excited to bring the Digital Bridges program to Carteret County,” said Carteret County Public Library System Director Dorothy Howell. “This initiative will help ensure that our community members have the technology and skills needed to participate fully in the digital world — from connecting with family and friends to accessing critical health resources.”

Adult patrons with a valid library card can borrow devices free of charge. Additionally, the library will launch a four-week Digital Skills Information Sessions series to enhance essential skills in a supportive environment. Sessions include the following:

• Basic Computer Skills: 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Nov. 26.
• Online Safety and Privacy: 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Dec. 3.
• How to Search and Find Trusted Information Online: 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Dec. 10.
• Using Healthcare Online: 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Dec. 17.

All sessions will take place at the Newport Library, 210 Howard Blvd., Newport. Light refreshments will be provided, and participants who complete both the pre-test and post-test will be entered into a drawing to win a free iPad.

Officials said the partnership marks a significant step forward for the county library system in helping to ensure that residents, regardless of their location or economic circumstances, have access to the technology and skills they need.

For more information about the program, including how to access devices and register for upcoming learning sessions, visit the library’s website or nearest branch.

WANCHESE — The National Park Service’s historic architect overseeing structural rehabilitation at the Ocracoke Light Station is the featured speaker this week for the “Science on the Sound” lecture series at the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks Campus.

Historical Architect George Jaramillo of the park service’s Outer Banks Group will present “Elevating Stations: Preserving the Ocracoke Light Station Double Keepers Quarters.” The free lecture is set for 6 p.m. Thursday.

With more than 20 years of architecture, heritage and design experience within the private and public sectors, Jaramillo explores the history, architectural significance and key adaptation strategies for preservation.

The monthly, in-person lecture series brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina.

“For two centuries the Ocracoke Light Station has maintained watch over the waters of Silver Lake,” organizers said in a statement. “Today, its continued threat from stronger storms has brought the need for climate-forward adaptation preservation strategies. We explore the entanglement of history and adaptation within the site and the current strategies implemented at the Ocracoke Light Station Double Keepers Quarters. Old and new techniques are promoted for the rehabilitation of the structure providing ‘tangible interventions’ (Anderson et al, 2018) to adapt our unique maritime legacy for our changing futures.”

The program will also be livestreamed on the CSI YouTube channel for those unable to attend.

Deep-diving whales that rely on sound rather than vision to hunt in the ocean’s darkest depths are confusing plastic marine debris for prey, new findings suggest.

For the study, “Acoustic signature of plastic marine debris mimics the prey items of deep-diving cetaceans,” researchers from Duke University as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, compared the way sound bounces off plastic that is floating underwater to that of typical whale prey, in this case, squid and squid beaks.

It is widely assumed that seals and toothed whales mistake plastic for food because of appearance, particularly plastic bags and films that look like squid and jellyfish, according to the study, but that doesn’t explain why deep-diving species like sperm whales and beaked whales that use echolocation are ingesting plastic. To echolocate, the whale emits sounds that reflect off an object. The whale then interprets the object’s target strength, or measurement of the intensity of the sound’s echo.

“Assuming these animals are ingesting plastic at depth and not at/near the surface, they are consuming plastic without visually identifying it. Deep-diving toothed whales may therefore be misinterpreting acoustic cues when echolocating; presumably plastic’s acoustic signature resembles that of primary prey items, driving plastic consumption,” the study states.

Researchers for the new study found that 100% of the plastics they tested that are typically found in stomachs of stranded whales — plastic bags, rope and bottles — have either similar or stronger acoustic target strengths, which is how strong a sound wave is reflected off an object, compared to that of squid.

The findings support the study’s hypothesis that deep-diving whales are consuming plastic because of “a misperception of acoustic signals.”

Duke University doctoral candidate Greg Merrill Jr. led the peer-reviewed study published a few weeks ago in Science Direct.

From California, Merrill has been at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort for the past few years to examine the impacts of microplastics and large plastic marine debris on whales.

Merrill graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a bachelor’s in biological science in 2014. He then pursued his master’s at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he worked with northern fur seals, trying to understand how climate change was impacting their breeding success. That experience planted the seed for this study.

While he was working on his master’s, Merrill said he spent many months on the remote Pribilof Islands of Alaska in the middle of the Bering Sea where the threatened northern fur seal breeds.

“All too common a sight was a seal entangled in plastic debris, such as packing bands and discarded fishing net. The animals often died as a result. This motivated me to study the impacts of plastic pollution on other marine mammals like the deep-diving sperm whales and beaked whales off the North Carolina coast,” he said.

Merrill explained that these animals, in particular, hunt especially deep in the ocean where there is no light to see. Instead, they rely on echolocation, or biosonar.

“In other words, they use sound waves to locate and identify food. Because we know from autopsies of stranded whales that they are eating plastic, it occurred to me that plastic may be causing whales to misinterpret their echolocation signals. So, we wanted to see if that was true,” Merrill explained.

He said in simple terms, the study was to see if plastic in the water confused echolocating whales into believing it was instead food.

“We collected plastic trash from the beach and then blasted those objects and whale prey with various sound waves at sea using an instrumented called an echosounder mounted to the bottom of our research vessel. The plastic objects were strung up on monofilament fishing line and held underneath the instrument while the measurements were recorded,” he said.

An echosounder is a device that uses sound waves to measure the water depth or where objects are in the water. The hull-mounted echosounder tested three different sounds at the same frequencies of whale clicks.

“Based on the measurements we recorded, plastic has similar or stronger echoes than the whale prey items we tested. The way an object reflects sound depends on what it’s made of,” Merrill explained, for example what the plastic is made of or (its) thickness. “Plastic unfortunately ‘sounds’ the same as whale food.”

The study notes that plastic pollution in the oceans is pervasive and increasing with more than 1,200 marine species known to ingest plastic debris. For marine mammals, there are hundreds of examples of whales, seals, sea lions and manatees “consuming plastic, ingestion of which constitutes a major threat to individual health,” the study states. “Consequences of macroplastic ingestion include abrasion and perforation of tissues, infection, reduced reproduction and growth, suffocation, clogging the baleen filter false satiation, occlusion of the gastrointestinal tract, starvation, and ultimately death.”

The finding underscores just how complex the plastic pollution issue is, Merrill said, adding the most common plastics found in whale stomachs are plastic bags, single-use packaging, and fishing gear such as nets, ropes, and lines.

“I’m not sure many people would have ever imagined that the way something sounds could have such big consequences as affecting large whales who hunt so very far away from human activities. The scale of the plastic pollution problem is enormous, a global issue that requires policy action at the level of local all the way to international governments. And it is having so many impacts on our planet and on human health, Merrill said.

He encourages “anyone who cares about this issue” to contact their elected officials and let them know you want to see action on this front.

Michael Cove, a conservation ecologist and mammologist, told Coastal Review that “this research was fascinating and provides some much-needed insights into how and why marine mammals might intentionally ingest plastic waste that could severely impact them and ultimately lead to their deaths.”

The research curator for the mammalogy at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, Cove explained that so much of our perception of food and foraging is based on visual cues, because humans use their eyes to find food, “and that has been shown in research with seabirds and sea turtles, but many deep-sea-diving marine mammals are going off of sound through echolocation and not sight.”

Studies like Merrill’s show that there’s still a lot to learn about how some of the sperm and beaked whales forage. In many cases, there’s still much to understand about what they forage because they are feeding at such great depths, Cove explained. He has often assumed that most plastic consumption is incidental or intentional based on visual cues, citing Mylar balloons looking like squid as an example.

But this study, “points to intentional consumption of plastics based on their sound, which spells trouble for deep sea diving whales since the accumulation of plastic in our oceans continues to increase and it persists for thousands of years.”

Cove said that this work highlights and renews that calls to end balloon releases, especially in coastal areas, should be revisited and policies to reduce plastics entering marine food webs will be critical to maintaining maintain diverse marine mammal communities into the future.

“After all, marine mammals along with sharks and large fishes make up the top of the food chain, which largely regulate the lower trophic levels (links in the chain) and the loss of any species and that top-down regulation can have cascading effects throughout the community that could even influence fisheries and ecosystem health processes well beyond the deep ocean,” he said.

Coastal Review will not publish Monday in observance of Veterans Day.

Two examples of U.S. Life-Saving Service history on the North Carolina coast, the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum and the Chicamacomico Historic Site, are to be showcased on North Carolina public television this month.

PBS North Carolina will feature the coastal history segment on NC Weekend, “a television program that celebrates the best things to see and do in the state,” according to an announcement from the historic site.

The feature is to be available Monday on the NC Weekend YouTube channel and website, as well as be broadcast on PBS North Carolina as part of the season 22 episode titled “Sea and Salt” at 9 p.m. Nov. 14, 5 p.m. Nov. 15, and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 19.

The program will include interviews with Pea Island Preservation Society Director of Outreach and Education Joan Collins and Chicamacomico Historic Site Executive Director John Griffin.

Collins was interviewed for the segment at the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum at the Pea Island station. That’s where surfmen cooked and ate their meals.

The original cookhouse building was moved to Manteo several years ago, renovated, and it opened as a museum in 2008. It’s now open only for special events as improvements are planned.

Griffin was interviewed at the Chicamacomico Historic Site in Rodanthe, where the 150^th anniversary of the establishment of North Carolina’s first seven lifesaving stations was recently celebrated. It was the first of the seven stations to be fully operational and now serves as a full-time public museum and attraction.

The Pea Island station may be best remembered for Keeper Richard Etheridge and his crew’s Oct. 11, 1896, rescue of nine who were aboard the shipwrecked schooner E.S. Newman during a hurricane.

In January 1880, Etheridge, who grew up enslaved on Roanoke Island and fought for freedom during the Civil War, became the first Black person in the nation to command a U.S. Live-Saving Service station when he was selected as keeper of the Pea Island station, the only one with an all-Black crew.

The Chicamacomico site is remembered for the rescue of 42 British merchant seaman aboard the Mirloduring World War II after the fully loaded British tanker was torpedoed by a German sub. The rescue was led by Keeper John Allen Midgett Jr., and the surfmen under his command.

The two sites operated as “sister” stations that were often called to perform joint rescues.

Ask any kid, and most of them can tell you the three things that plants need to grow and thrive, each in appropriate measure: Sunlight. Water. Soil.

Most soils around here are either an ancient sand dune or an ancient swamp, with not much in between.

The sandier soils, like on the beach, tend to be limier.

The darker, muckier soils tend to be more acidic.

And neither of those tendencies is set in stone.

More important than your soil type is knowing the pH of that soil. What is pH, and why is the second letter capitalized and not the first?

A simple definition of pH is, it’s a measure of how acidic or base a substance is, as determined by the concentration of hydrogen ions. The higher the concentration of hydrogen ions, the more acidic your soil is. The fewer hydrogen ions there are means your soil is more alkaline. On a 14-point scale, battery acid is zero, with water or blood being neutral, and caustic substances like drain cleaner or soda being 14. Thus, 7 would be neutral, anything under 7 is acidic, and anything over 7 is alkaline.

As for why the second letter is capitalized, pH stands for power/potential of Hydrogen. H is capitalized because it stands for Hydrogen, and elements of the periodic table are generally capitalized, which makes for weird sentences.

A plant’s pH is what enables it to absorb nutrients.

Hydrangeas are a great natural litmus test for your soil. If you have hydrangeas, the bluer or more purple the blooms are, the more acidic your soil is. If your hydrangeas are pink, your soil is more alkaline.

If you want, you can put sulfur on one side of your hydrangea and lime on the other. Sulfur will lower the pH, while lime will raise it. The change won’t be instant, because altering your soil pH is not a quick thing, but you’ll end up with blue blooms on one side and pink on the other, shading to a delightful mix in the middle.

Our mostly acidic soil is why, even if you plant a pink hydrangea, it’s probably going to turn into a blue-flowered plant.

Why is pH important?

Some plants like acidic soil, some thrive in more neutral soil, some like more lime.

The easiest way I’ve found to explain pH is this: If you go to a restaurant and order a glass of sweet tea, if that restaurant fixes tea the right way … cooking the tea and mixing the sugar in while the tea is hot, everything is copacetic. If they give you a glass of ice tea and packets of sugar, no matter how much sugar you add or how much you stir, stir, stir … the tea will never absorb the sugar. The sugar will sit in the bottom of the glass, there but useless.

Plants are like that glass of tea. If the pH of your soil isn’t right for the type of plant you’re trying to grow, no matter how much fertilizer you throw at it, like that sugar sitting uselessly in the bottom of your glass of tea, the plant isn’t able to absorb the nutrients.

How do you know what your pH is, and how do you change it?

There are inexpensive kits similar to pool testers. All you need to use those is a bit of your soil, a bit of water, preferably bottled, and one of the capsules included in the test kit. Then you simply match the color of your concoction to the provided chart. Those are a good general indicator, and there are also more precise, probe-type, handheld pH meters, something like a meat thermometer.

Better still, a more accurate way to test your soil is to pick up some soil sample boxes along with an information sheet and send both to the soil testing section of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. As long as you send in your samples BEFORE Thanksgiving and AFTER April, there is no charge except postage. There is a charge in effect during the winter months because farmers are given priority then. In about three weeks, you’ll have your results!

We try to keep the sample boxes at the Newport Garden Center, or you can swing by your local Ag Extension office. The results will tell you exactly how much of which fertilizer is needed, whether you’re trying for a golf-course-worthy lawn or aiming for the prizewinning giant whatever in your garden.

Fall is the perfect time to send in your samples, because whether you need to add lime or sulfur, both need a while to take effect.

Putting out either without a soil test is like adding salt to something you have yet to taste. You might end up with an okay meal, or you might need to add more, or it might turn out to have so much salt it’s crunchy.

Not only can a pH imbalance inhibit plants from absorbing nutrients, it can also cause toxicity by allowing plants to absorb too much of the wrong thing.

A pH imbalance is why you can’t successfully plant things like blueberries and figs, for example, in the same area. Blueberries demand an acidic soil, and figs thrive on limey soil. Put the two together and it’s like trying to put a penguin and a monkey on an iceberg. One’s going to be extremely happy and the other … well, it isn’t going to live long.

Things that can affect pH are soil type, amount of rainfall, fertilizers, vegetation, temperature, and organic matter.

Most of the time you can correct pH by amending the soil. Sometimes the pH is just too far out of whack to correct it to the degree needed. In that case, it’s better to just give in and grow something else. For instance, centipede grass likes a low pH. If your pH is really high, you might be better off trying to grow something that likes a higher pH. Same with gardens.

Penguins or monkeys? You decide.

Graduate students in good standing who attend one of the North Carolina’s colleges or universities can apply for a $10,000 grant to fund a one-year research project focusing on the state’s coastal and freshwater resources.

North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute and North Carolina Sea Grant are accepting proposals for the Mountains to Sea Graduate Research Fellowship until 5 p.m. Dec. 16. The full request for proposals is available online.

The institute works to address issues related to surface and groundwater resources, including quality and quantity. Sea Grant covers a range of topics including climate resilience, healthy ecosystems, education and workforce development, fisheries, and aquaculture.

Proposals should align with both organization’s strategic plans, coordinators said, and are encouraged to address one or more of the following focus areas:

• Emerging regulated and unregulated contaminants of concern.
• Microplastic pollution and marine debris.
• Aquatic invasive species.
• Harmful algal blooms and associated toxins.
• Climate impacts, including nuisance flooding.
• Erosion and sediment control.
• Surface and groundwater quality and/or quantity.
• Water treatment, including aquaculture effluent.
• Green stormwater infrastructure & nature-based solutions.
• Urban design and recreational management.
• Economics, planning and/or policy related to water resources management.
• Water education.

Water Resources Research Institute is a multi-campus center of the University of North Carolina system and is part of a national network of 54 institutes authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1964. The institute represents a federal and state partnership between the US Geological Survey and state land grant universities.

North Carolina Sea Grant, also a UNC system multi-campus program, is one of 33 programs within the National Sea Grant College Program, and represents a federal and state partnership between the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and coastal and great lakes states.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologists David Glenn and Ryan Ellis are to give a glimpse of how forecasts are made now and looking ahead at this month’s “Science on the Sound.”

“The National Weather Service: Where We Are and Where We Are Going. A Look into the Current and Future State of Weather Forecasting” is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus in Wanchese.

Both based at the National Weather Service forecast office in Newport, Glenn is the meteorologist-in-charge and Ellis is the science and operations officer. The talk will focus on how weather projections are made and delivered to decision-makers, and how forecasting could evolve as new technology is incorporated.

Glenn began his career with NOAA’s National Weather Service in 2008 at the Portland, Maine, Weather Forecast Office. He was promoted in 2010 as forecaster at the Newport office and became the science and operations officer in June 2016. Glenn became the meteorologist-in-charge of the Newport office in October 2018.

Ellis has been with the Newport office since 2019. He was a meteorologist for 10 years with the Raleigh office and a student intern at the office in Honolulu, Hawaii. Ellis received his bachelor’s from the University of Miami and his master’s in meteorology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Ellis is an adjunct professor at East Carolina University in the Department of Geography.

The Coastal Studies Institute offers the monthly, in-person lecture series that highlights coastal topics and the public is encouraged to attend. The talk will be live-streamed on the CSI YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/live/MzxTqhyC1pg.

A marketing campaign to highlight the birth of six Asian small-clawed otters at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher was given national recognition.

“Whole Lotta Otta” is one of the 28 projects recognized in September during the Association of Zoos and Aquariums annual conference held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The aquarium earned the Excellence in Marketing Award for a campaign with a budget under $175,000.

“Whole Lotta Otta” tells the story of parents Leia and Quincy welcoming two litters of three pups in less than a year as well as work of the aquarium to save this vulnerable species.

These otters are native to Southeast Asia, southern India, southern China, Indonesia and the Philippines. The aquarium is working to save them through the AZA Species Survival Plan Program.

The marketing campaign featured the otters on static and digital billboards, buses, shuttles, social media posts and digital ads to raise awareness about the otters at the aquarium and share their story of survival. 

“We were thrilled to bring home the AZA top honors marketing award as the Aquarium team has embraced the conservation focus and engaged the community in the individual action they can take to save this species. The excitement over having two births in less than a year gave us the idea for Whole Lotta Otta and the opportunity to shine a light on how critical it is that the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher is saving species through our work with the AZA,” said Deyanira Romo Rossell, communications manager at the aquarium.

There is a grippingly real sense of dread that some people feel about the state of the environment.

That’s what Dr. Paul Taillie, assistant professor of geography and the environment at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, told an audience last week during the most recent “Science on the Sound” monthly lecture series hosted by Coastal Studies Institute at the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus.

“This is a documented term called ‘climate anxiety,’ where this state of the Earth these days is causing people to be anxious,” he said. “It’s hard to avoid these dramatic, very worrisome headlines about super hurricanes and death and destruction, historic flooding. This feeling of anxiety is valid (and) I think it’s very justified.”

He delivered his talk, “Coastal Ecosystems and Rising Seas: Impending Collapse or Conservation Opportunity?” Thursday evening, one day before Hurricane Helene brought unheard of rainfall and destruction to Western North Carolina.

Taillie acknowledged that while there is reason for concern about the environment, he does not share the full-on anxiety others may experience. “I tend to be very optimistic about things.”

There were reasons for his optimism, he explained, adding he hoped attendees left the evening’s discussion with “more of a sense of optimism about climate change and biodiversity than when you came in the room.”

Taillie pointed out that all systems evolve and change over time and that the plants and animals living in those systems adjust to the changes and have been “for a really long time, hundreds of thousands of years.”

Questions remain about the impact of environmental change on certain species, especially those that are threatened by the changes that are taking place.

Taillie said that when he began his graduate studies, he wanted to look at how species, in general, reacted to environmental changes. One of the difficulties he found in wanting to study the possible benefits of those changes was the reluctance to focus on possible benefits.

“It’s easier to publish a paper about a species going extinct because of climate change than it is to publish a paper about a species benefiting from climate change,” he said. “But that’s been kind of a driving force behind my research.”

Taillie’s first graduate work was to investigate the effects of wildfire on plants and animals, and what he found was that wildfire is, in fact, an important part of the ecosystem.

“I started to notice that there’s all these plants and animals that are uniquely adapted to the conditions created by fire, and that these disturbances that we think of as being really bad can often be really good for biodiversity,” he said.

When he started his doctoral work, he had the chance to study the 2016 Pains Bay Fire in Dare County that burned 15,000 acres in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

“I was super interested to see what happened to this area. As soon as I was allowed to, I went in there,” Taillie continued, showing the audience a picture of burned trees and shrubbery. Just a week later, grass had begun growing among the charred trees.

“These grasses (are) palladium or sawgrass. This is exploding,” he said. “It’s growing superfast and responding to fire very rapidly.”

A year later, he found what was once a forest was completely covered in grasses and fast-growing vegetation.

“This is almost unrecognizable as forest,” Taillie continued. “That fire is catalyzing this transition from forest to marsh.”

Taillie made the point that the grasses that have grown where there was once dense forest are essential for the survival of a number of species.

“These marshes support a lot of really unique animals that hide in these dense grasses,” he explained. “Many birds and small mammals are running around in there. They’re super vulnerable to predation, and so they need this dense grass in order to hide from predators.”

Fire is a relatively spectacular environmental change. The changes that occur in a marsh are more subtle but every bit as dynamic.

“Marshes,” he said, “have these built-in mechanisms of resilience to changes in sea level.”

As sea levels rise, the marsh will often migrate landward, replacing terrestrial systems, especially forest. That movement is apparent in ghost forests, where stands of dead trees immediately adjacent to a live forest.

State and federal agencies, including the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are concerned about these ghost forests. “These were proliferating all over Dare and Hyde counties.”

Taillie continued that he realized while he studied what was happening that “the ghost forest represented a transition from one stage of this transition from forest to marsh. This is not something to stop.”

Bird surveys that were taken of the living forest and ghost forest showed that the ghost forests are an important part of species survival and adaptation.

“We started to notice that there were lots of interesting birds hanging out in the ghost forests, much different than in the live forest. One of those is a prothonotary warbler,” he said.

A highly migratory species, the prothonotary warbler is described by the Cornell University All About Birds website as “a species of high conservation concern.”

The birds prefer nesting sites in standing dead trees over shallow water, a condition that Taillie described as “the exact sort of conditions that you find in those forests.”

He said his work has taken him from the marsh and barrier islands of coastal North Carolina to the Florida Keys, where he has been studying the ability of a subspecies of marsh rice rats to adapt and survive in their environment.

“Everyone always wants to know, well, if all the Keys were underwater, where did they go? I don’t know,” he said and pointed out that, “They have dealt with hurricanes for a very long time.”

There are, he pointed out, a number of similarities between North Carolina’s barrier islands and the Florida Keys. Both are subject, as an example, to periodic flooding, and it was the flooding that brought the silver rice rat to Taillie’s attention in 2017.

At the time, he was working with the Fish and Wildlife Service following Hurricane Irma. The agency was concerned that because of storm surge, “this entire endangered species could be no longer in existence.”

It quickly became apparent that the silver rice rat population was holding its own, even though the storm surge of 2 to 3 feet should have inundated the Keys where the rats lived.

How they survived is a mystery, Taillie said.

A six-part documentary series that explores extreme weather in vulnerable communities is scheduled to debut Wednesday on PBS.

“Weathered: Earth’s Extremes” features 30-minute episodes that follow host and science communicator Maiya May as she looks into the impacts of climate change and meets with the people inside communities on the frontline of extreme weather.

May previously developed weather content for an ABC affiliate in Atlanta, the University of Missouri, and four small-scale documentary projects exploring climate.

“In 2015, when I decided to pivot away from pursuing a career as an on-air meteorologist, I made it my mission to create thought-provoking content that strengthens knowledge, appreciation, and connection to our natural world,” May said in a release. “Climate change is complex and, for some, may feel like a problem for future generations, or geographic regions other than their own. Weathered: Earth’s Extremes breaks down these concepts and shows viewers how their lives might be affected, all while offering hope and real, tangible solutions. I’m so proud and blessed to be able to communicate the science behind this increasingly important matter, and I can’t wait for audiences to see it.”

May studied geography and atmospheric science at the University of Missouri-Columbia and interned for television stations in Missouri, Atlanta and at The Weather Channel. May grew up in Lithonia, Georgia, where she graduated from Arabia Mountain High School Academy of Engineering, Medicine and Environmental Studies.

An evolution of the PBS Digital Studios YouTube series with the same name, which has amassed more than 30 million views on PBS Terra since 2020, the series aims to help audiences understand the big-picture shifts in weather mechanisms brought on by climate change while empowering them to plan, prepare, and offset the impact of these events.

 “The series’ central mission – using weather to draw viewers into deep conversations about climate science – has enabled us to connect with a broad audience across ideologies, ages, and backgrounds online,” Adam Dylewski, Senior Director of Multiplatform Programming at PBS, said. “This is also the first time a PBS Digital Studios show on YouTube has made the leap to a long-form series. With Weathered, it’s exciting to see how a new generation of PBS talent and creators are coming from YouTube and social media and bringing innovative storytelling approaches and a fresh new sensibility with them.”

In the first episode, “Are We at The Tipping Point?,” May embarks on a journey from Florida to Alaska to explore climate tipping points.

Episode 2, “Adapt or Leave?,” has May visiting Louisiana, one of the first communities in the country to undergo a federally funded relocation due to climate change.

May explores in Episode 3, “The Heat is On,” the most deadly kind of weather, heat, in an unlikely place: Portland, Oregon.

In Episode 4, titled “Water Whiplash,” May explores the growing extremes of droughts and floods and their impact on food and water.

Episode 5, “Not ‘Business As Usual,” May travels to see how climate systems are predicted and analyzed and the global energy transition to renewables.

The sixth and final in the series, “Climate Crossroads,” shows when May returns to Florida to explore the impacts of climate change on ocean currents.

“Weathered: Earth’s Extremes” will be available to stream starting Wednesday on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. The series will also be available on PBS YouTube channels including PBS Terra and PBS stations. Check local listings.

WANCHESE — Dr. Pail Taillie, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environment, is the featured speaker for the next “Science on the Sound” Lecture Series at the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus.

The monthly, in-person lecture series brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina. This month, Taillie is to present his lecture, “Coastal Ecosystems and Rising Seas: Impending Collapse or Conservation Opportunity?” at 6 p.m. Sept. 26.

The program being offered at no charge to the public is taking place on campus, 850 N.C. Highway 345, Wanchese.

“The negative consequences of climate change seem to be everywhere, making it hard to be optimistic about the future,” campus officials said in the announcement. “For anyone suffering from climate anxiety, this lecture promises some relief. Dr. Taillie will discuss the many ways that coastal ecosystems are highly resilient and capable of adapting to increasingly rapid changes in sea level. From simply counting birds with pen and paper to remote cameras and telemetry tags, he uses a variety of different techniques and tools to better understand how coastal plants and animals are responding to rising sea levels and how these responses can be used to help inform how we manage our coasts. He’ll conclude by arguing that this resilience represents a unique conservation opportunity where the impacts of climate change don’t have to be so depressing.”

Taillie earned both a master’s and doctorate in fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology from North Carolina State University. Following graduate school, he worked at the University of Florida as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. His research and teaching broadly aim to address the implications of global change for biodiversity conservation, with a particular emphasis on wetlands, estuaries, and coasts.

The program will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

Cape Fear Museum of History and Science is joining this weekend in the worldwide celebration of lunar science and exploration.

International Observe the Moon Night is from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the museum in Wilmington.

Plans include hands-on activities, exhibit explorations, moon observation, themed story time and more at the event being held rain or shine and at no charge.

Museum Educator Jameson McDermott expressed in a statement that the museum staff is excited to host the free event.

“It’s an evening to welcome the community to the Museum and come together with fellow Moon enthusiasts to learn about lunar science, exploration and discovery,” McDermott said.

Attendees can view the moon and other celestial objects from the museum par using telescopes provided by Cape Fear Astronomical Society.

Activities include building and launching a stomp rocket, learning about the supermoon expected on Wednesday and creating a supermoon superhero, coloring a space helmet and interactive stories.

Visitors can also check out the interactive Space Place exhibit, and learn more about the video game industry at the traveling Game Changers exhibit.

BOLIVIA – A request to bump Bald Head Island ferry hourly departures to every 90 minutes got a verbal thumbs down from nearly everyone who spoke at a state-hosted public hearing Tuesday night.

The schedule change proposed by the private company, Bald Head Island Transportation Inc., would disrupt ferry runs that coincide with start and end times of the only school on the island, increase commute times for workers going to and from the island, and force businesses on the island to shrink their hours of operation, opponents of the change argued.

A handful of those who spoke at Tuesday’s hearing the North Carolina Utilities Commission held in Brunswick County Courthouse Courtroom 2 said they did, however, favor a hybrid schedule that has been floated around, but not submitted to the commission for consideration.

Elizabeth Stephen, a 30-year Bald Head property owner and 8-year full-time resident, said she was 100% in favor of the hybrid schedule, one that purportedly would begin and end departures to and from the island on the current 30-minute schedule and shift to a 45-minute schedule midday.

Stephen was among roughly 30 people scattered throughout the courtroom where utilities Commissioner Karen Kemerait, who headed the hearing, sat at the front of the room in the seat typically reserved for a judge.

Those who signed up to speak at the hearing were sworn in before taking a seat in the courtroom witness box, where they were allowed to give no more than a 3-minute-long statement and answer questions of commission members and attorneys representing various groups that have intervened in the application review process.

Bald Head resident Jesse Hermann, one of nearly a dozen people to speak at the hearing, said the proposed schedule change would be, simply put, a reduction in capacity.

“The ferries are going to get more crowded as you reduce the schedule,” he said.

The impact to people who frequently travel on and off the island would be akin to shutting down a heavily used commuter thoroughfare to every other hour of the day, a move that would substantially increase the amount of time a person commutes, Hermann argued.

He suggested the ferry service might be able to turn to making procedural changes, including finding more efficient ways to load and unload passengers and their luggage, and add more trams to shuttle passengers and their luggage to and from the ferry landing on the island.

Island property owner Trisha Johnson hopped a flight from her hometown of Athens, Georgia, to speak at the hearing, where she said the proposed “schedule change” is, in her estimation, a capacity reduction.

“The capacity of the ferry is not sufficient and reducing it is not going to solve the problem,” she said.

Nicola Cutler, a teacher at Bald Head Island Academy, a private K-8 school that first opened its doors in 2022, said the proposed schedule was unrealistic because the ferry run times would not align with the start or end of the school day.

“This schedule does not fit into our school schedule whatsoever,” she said.

“Numerous” students ride the ferry to get to and from school, Cutler said, adding that about 20% of those students have parents who work on the island.

The academy, Bald Head Island Academy Foundation Inc., Village of Bald Head Island, Bald Head Island Clu,b and Bald Head Association all intervened in the transportation company’s Feb. 19 application to the utilities commission.

A 90-minute passenger ferry schedule would not provide “enough capacity to meet the island’s current and growing needs,” Village Mayor Peter Quinn wrote in an announcement last week about the public hearing.

In a presentation to the village council earlier this year, Bald Head Island Transportation President Chad Paul said increased demand for passenger ferry and tram service has caused a lapse in on-time performance.

“The issue for the schedule is not just the ferries, it’s the trams,” he said at that February meeting. “We’ve got 350 more homes built since 2010.”

That was the first full year of ferry operations from the mainland terminal at Deep Point Marina in Southport to the island, when annual round-trip ridership was 570,000, according to the company’s application.

That number jumped to 700,000 in 2019. Last year, a record 782,000 passengers took the ferry.

More than 3 million pounds of baggage has been loaded and unloaded by hand aboard ferries each year since 2021 and, last year, more than 4,500 larger items that do not fit in dollies, including bicycles, kayaks, canoes and “large luggage items” were transported, according to the application.

About 85% of ticket buyers since June 2023 have purchased electronic tickets either online or through the transportation company’s mobile app, Paul told council members earlier this year.

While that has helped passengers see which ferries are already sold out and which ones are available for booking, it has not curtailed a “capacity issue” that caught the company off guard, he said.

“It kind of eased up on us and kind of hit us all at once,” when the company started selling passes to some of the larger employers on the island, Paul said.

Employers do not ask their employees to step aside and leave spots open for residents and guests on an otherwise fully ferry, he said. That means that either the customer or an employee gets bumped to the next available ferry.

Paul said there has been a 22% decrease in the number of passengers getting bumped to the next available ferry since the electronic ticketing system began.

“I would think, too that the 45-minute schedule would have even fewer bumped boats,” he said in February.

According to the company’s application, the contractor ferry, which is reserved for contractors who work on the island and may be utilized by employees as well, would continue to depart from the mainland terminal at 5:30 a.m. and from the island at 6 a.m. Monday – Friday during the summer and winter months.

In summers, the first passenger ferry would leave the mainland at 6 a.m. Monday-Friday instead of the current time of 7 a.m. and depart the island at 6:45 a.m. on weekdays. The first passenger ferry from the mainland would depart weekends at 6 a.m. and from the island at 6:30 a.m.

The last passenger ferry would leave the mainland each night at 10:30 p.m. and the island at 11 p.m.

In winters, the last passenger ferry would leave the mainland at 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The last ferry to leave the island would be at 9:45 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Bald Head Island Conservancy Executive Director Chris Shank said the proposed schedule change would easily result in two weeks’ worth of lost worktime in a calendar year for his staff, lengthen their commute times and, in turn, likely increase staff turnover.

“The ferry’s already late,” he said. “A larger ferry would be nice. Having increase capacity during commuting times would be enormous.”

Southport resident Lindsey Urso said the ferry system she uses five times a week to get to the island to work “is an absolute disgrace.”

“What we are seeing recently with our ferry system is a complete failure on all fronts,” she continued. “We have delays that stretch hours and hours on end. These aren’t minor inconveniences. They are disruptions that affect people’s lives. Right now, the system is failing us.”

Island resident Robert Drumheller was the only person who spoke in favor of the proposed schedule change, saying the 5-nautical-mile trip between terminals, the time needed to move passengers and their luggage on and off the ferries and then transport them by tram to homes throughout the island essentially makes it impossible to run under the current schedule.

“I think we need to give this a try,” he said.

If after a year or so the schedule does not prove itself, the transportation company could revisit the matter, Drumheller said.

An expert witness hearing on the schedule change application is set for Nov. 5 in the utilities commission hearing room 2115, Dobbs Building, 430 North Salisbury St., Raleigh. The full schedule may be found online.

The vote to prohibit balloon releases within Dare County’s unincorporated areas was anticlimactic when its commissioners unanimously voted last week to support the ban.

Southern Shores resident Debbie Swick, the force behind the ban, addressed the board before they took up the vote.

When Swick began, she pointed to a large, opaque trash bag filled with pieces of balloons propped against the front of the speaker’s podium.

“This bag was collected by five of us over six months. Just five people (and) there’s several hundred balloons in there,” she said. “The National Park Service last year picked up 1,786 balloons along our 70-mile stretch of coastline.”

Now that the rule is in place, it is illegal to release balloons anywhere along the Outer Banks shoreline, from Duck to Hatteras Village.

The county joins its incorporated towns of Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head in banning balloon releases. Manteo, which is on Roanoke Island, has yet to prohibited releasing balloons, but the town is in Swick’s sights.

Dare County towns are not the only beach towns in the state that have banned releasing balloons. Similar ordinances are in effect in Wrightsville Beach, Topsail Beach, North Topsail Beach and Surf City. Ten states have also banned balloon releases.

For Swick, a member of Network for Endangered Sea Turtles, or N.E.S.T., based on the Outer Banks, and Outer Banks Marine Mammal Stranding Network, banning balloons has become a crusade, and she has created Ban Balloon Release NC to accomplish her goal.

Although she is a one-person movement now, she said that may change over time. 

“I will probably just plug along until I can’t do it by myself and then start looking for more people,” she told Coastal Review.

Coastal North Carolina is just a small part of the problem, she noted.

“You release (the balloon), it’s unretrievable, and it’s going to drift upwards of 1,300 miles from where you release it,” she said, adding the state’s beaches are an ideal location to get the word out about the dangers of balloons in the environment.

“Millions of visitors come from places like Ohio and Kansas and Indiana and Pennsylvania. Balloon releases in their states impact our wildlife and our coastline. So, I’m going to use every opportunity I can to get the word out and educate them,” she said.

Her fears for wildlife are based in science. One of Swick’s arguments for banning balloon releases is that the balloons do not break down in the environment.

Mylar, which is a polyester, can take hundreds of years to completely break down in the environment. Even latex balloons that are marketed as biodegradable take five years or longer to decompose. The strings used hold balloons in place until they are released are generally not biodegradable.

Balloons in the water look similar to the marine life that are part of whales’ diets. Once in the digestive tract, the balloons are not digested and can cause blockages and death.

Education, understanding are key

Keith Rittmaster, natural sciences curator at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, has been responding to reports of dead and dying whales for a number of years, and he has witnessed firsthand the impact balloons have on marine life.

A Gervais beaked whale that beached off Emerald Isle in 2023 was, to Rittmaster, particularly sad.

“(It was) a nursing calf that had no food in the stomach. No squid parts or fish parts. They had mother’s milk,” he said. “This balloon was blocking the entrance to the stomach so no milk could pass. I had to use my imagination to figure out what was going on. I can’t imagine it was anything but this was the first bite that this whale took.”

Whales are not the only marine species affected by the balloons that have landed at sea. Seabirds and sea turtles regularly become entangled in the lines and sea turtles, like whales, will try to eat the balloons.

Rittmaster, whose area of expertise is marine mammals, said that researchers are seeing an unexplained phenomenon regarding whales.

“What we’re learning, which is kind of an ‘oh, wow!’ to me is, we’re finding more plastic balloons all the time in deep-diving whales rather than shallow-diving whales,” he said.

He then sounded a cautionary note about the problem’s pervasiveness.

“It’s going to get worse even if we ended it today,” he said. “If, for some miracle, we could end the releasing of balloons today — I feel pretty confident since these plastics last hundreds of years — this problem is going to continue to get worse, not just the balloons themselves, but the plastic and nylon strings that they are tied to.”

Like Swick, Rittmaster is resolute in calling for action.

“There’s a lot of things that are terrifying us that we can’t even conceive how to solve in generations. This is something we can solve,” he said.

The challenge is often frustrating.

After the city of Greenville voted 4-3 in the fall of 2023 against an ordinance that would ban balloon releases, Rittmaster led some workshops about what happens when a balloon is released.

“A politician was there,” he recalled. “And I gave the presentation and she said, ‘Can we just release the balloons inland but not release them along the coast?’ This isn’t a bad person. She doesn’t really understand, and that highlighted to me what we’re up against.”

Swick believes education is the key, and with that knowledge will come a better understanding of the world around us and perhaps a hope for future generations.

“This is just such small potatoes, so it gets pushed on the back burner…This is one of those things, it’s not going to go away until we decide to make a change,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of educating but my hope is that the generations of children that are coming up, (that they) learn a valuable lesson and take that with them as they grow into adulthood and raise children.”

Of the more than 250 freshwater fish species in North Carolina, there’s a surprising amount that venture into marine and estuarine waters.

Which ones? That answer can be found in the 464-page “A Guide to North Carolina’s Freshwater Fishes,” published in March.

“From Wolf Creek, the westernmost community in Cherokee County, to the small Outer Banks town of Buxton in Dare County, North Carolina’s fresh waters are home to forty families of fishes: Thirty-one families whose species are primarily freshwater, five families whose species are primarily marine and estuarine, and four families whose species are almost evenly split between freshwater and marine,” the introduction begins.

The University Of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill published the guide that is an update to the 1991 “The Freshwater Fishes of North Carolina” by Edward F. Menhinick.

Authors are North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences Ichthyology Collections Manager Gabriela Hogue, museum adjunct researcher Bryn Tracy, Scott Smith and Jesse Bissette, both with North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, and Fred “Fritz” Rohde, a fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Beaufort Lab.

Illustrated with 546 full-color images, the new guidebook has data on all freshwater fish families and 260 maps showing where to find them, the state’s ichthyological history, or study of fishes, a key to help identify fish, and an appendix that explains the meaning behind the scientific names. The paperback, $35, and the eBook, $9.99, can be purchased online from the publisher and in the museum’s gift shop.

The authors all expressed their commitment to educating the public about the often-misunderstood freshwater fish in all of North Carolina’s waters.

“This book is a culmination of my 50 years spent studying the freshwater fishes of our beautiful state,” Rohde told Coastal Review in an email response. “Unfortunately, too many people have no idea of the fish diversity that we have in the coastal area — it’s more than Largemouth Bass and ‘bream’ — and we hope that our book will enlighten them.”

The guidebook is to help people understand what’s in the state’s streams, see how beautiful the state’s fishes are, and then maybe “become an advocate to help conserve our waters,” Tracy said during a recent conversation with Hogue and Coastal Review.

Hogue agreed.

“We want people to be able to identify every fish where they’re at in the freshwaters of North Carolina, but also just fall in love with them,” Hogue said. “Most people think it’s just the marine fishes that are beautifully colored, that are intricate, that have weird features, and yes, they’re incredible, but we have incredible diversity and beauty, and strange, weird features and structures in our freshwaters too.”

Bissette and Smith explained in an email that this is a resource anglers and nature enthusiasts who frequent coastal areas can use to explore inland freshwater regions.

“Having a comprehensive guide to freshwater fishes can enhance their appreciation and knowledge of the diverse species they might encounter throughout North Carolina, including those freshwater fish that occasionally stray into brackish or coastal waters, such as Longnose Gar, and those saltwater fish that sometimes venture into freshwater, like Striped Mullet.”

Freshwater isn’t a misnomer for the fish families that spend time in waters with higher salinity.

“Fish don’t adhere to the boundaries we draw, often moving between ‘freshwater’ and ‘saltwater’ habitats. Many species also have life cycles in both freshwater and saltwater ecosystems,” Bissette and Smith continued.

For example, they said, an anadromous fish like striped bass and American shad spend the majority of their lives in saltwater but return to freshwater to spawn. Also, many rivers and streams flow into coastal areas, creating the estuarine environments those on the coast know and love.

“Understanding the freshwater species that contribute to these ecosystems helps to shed light on the broader ecological dynamics at play in coastal regions,” they said.

Tracy and Hogue both said they’ve spent decades studying fish.

Tracy took a few courses on ichthyology in the late 1970s while at University of Missouri-Columbia for undergrad and grad school. After graduating, he spent 13 years as an environmental biologist for a power company, then spent the rest of his career as an environmental specialist with North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Quality. He assessed the relationship between fish health and water quality until he retired in 2017.

Hogue, who has been at the museum since the late 1990s, said she’s always had a love for the water.

After a snorkeling trip with her father, which she called “just an incredible experience,” her interest in studying fish was piqued, but she never thought it was a career option. Unlike most of her classmates studying biology as undergrad at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, she did not want to go pre-med. She told her reasons to her academic adviser who encouraged her to find her passion, and she did while doing research at the Illinois Natural History Survey, which houses millions of specimens.

Once she finished graduate school there, she joined the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission staff to take aquatic inventories in state parks. Three years later in 1998, she moved to the natural sciences museum and has been there since.

Tracy said they first met to discuss the idea of a book in 2012, and began in earnest in 2020.

Tracy didn’t want to spend 10 years writing several-inch-thick tomes on fishes “that you could use as a doorstop,” so he, Hogue and Rohde wrote a short paper before publishing “An Annotated Atlas of the Freshwater Fishes of North Carolina” in October 2020, he said.

The roughly 200-page PDF had been downloaded more than 4,400 times as of last week and is available to anyone at no charge.

When the atlas was made available, Hogue said that almost immediately they were asked when the book would be coming out. As the number of downloads increased, so did the decision to “dive in and do this.”

They used data from the 2020 atlas and the Fishes of North Carolina project, which began in 2013 to identify all of the state’s known freshwater and marine fishes, to update the 1991 freshwater fish guide. Both the atlas and Fishes of North Carolina website are companions to the new guide.

A lot has changed since that early 1990s edition. There are new species, new distributions and even new names. “Even though this book was great in its heyday,” it was time for an update, Tracy explained.

Hogue explained that they had a few goals with the book, chiefly, making it accessible both financially and for all audiences.

“We didn’t want to just write a book for ichthyologists, or students who are hoping to be ichthyologists. We wanted to make it for anybody that wants to know more about fish,” Hogue said.

Hogue said that science doesn’t always seem accessible and she feels scientists need to just “take off that white lab coat” and dispel the belief that “we’re all geniuses because we’re scientists. No, I’m just a regular person that loves fish.”

Also, in terms of accessibility, Hogue was adamant the guide includes a photo glossary explaining how to use a dichotomous key and a glossary. A dichotomous key is a sequence of paired statements that help the user identify a species.

“In North Carolina, we are so lucky that we have these ecoregions,” Hogue continued. “We’ve got the mountains, we’ve got the Piedmont, we’ve got the coast, we’ve got the sandhills, and so that also creates incredible diversity in the habitats of these species, and that’s why I think we have such a rich diversity.”

The Wildlife Resources Commission published the 1991 guide, and Hogue approached the state agency for help with the update. The commission came through, providing a $15,000 grant that helped keep the book cost relatively low. The project also received a $950 photography grant to travel the state for better images from the North Carolina Chapter of the American Fisheries Society.  

The hope is to make downloads of a chapter or the entire book available at no charge. “But we haven’t gotten to that level yet,” Tracy added. “We’re not in it for the money.”

Hogue said the “incredible research collection” that she manages at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences helped with data for the book.

The collection of about 1.4 million specimens focuses on southeastern United States because it is “such a hotspot for biodiversity.”

The museum’s sizable collection, most of which is available on a globally accessible database, is made up of smaller collections museums, researchers, universities and others donated for a variety of reasons. Either the institution didn’t have the funds any more to maintain a collection, or the department moved in a different direction, Hogue said.

When the museum was founded, the intent was to showcase what is in North Carolina, “but it’s not like a fish knows a geopolitical boundary,” so that focus has widened, she said. In addition to the Southeast, 67 are countries represented in the collection.

If you saw middle schoolers at the helm of Marine Patrol skiffs gliding across Carteret County waters earlier this month, you caught a glimpse of the first group to participate in the first-ever North Carolina Marine Patrol Junior Academy.

Organized by the Marine Patrol, the camp brought together 11 youngsters aged 12 to 15, who met every day June 10-14 at the Division of Marine Fisheries headquarters in Morehead City. Spending their days both in the classroom and on boats, most of the campers were from Carteret and surrounding counties, and there were two brothers who made their way to Morehead City from Florida to join in.

The North Carolina Marine Patrol dates back to 1822, when oyster harvest gear restrictions were put in place. Today, the Marine Patrol monitors all coastal waters extending 3 miles offshore, 2.5 million acres of water and over 4,000 miles of coastline, according to the division.

Funded through grants and private donations, campers late in the morning June 13 traveled by skiff from the division’s docks on Bogue Sound to the Rachel Carson Reserve across from downtown Beaufort.

Once the skiffs reached the protected land, campers grabbed nets and wandered along the shore while patrol officers began grilling hot dogs. After lunch, campers were able to test their knowledge during a mock Marine Patrol inspection.

Enforcement Officer Erik Smith said while manning the grill that he came up with the idea to start the academy a few years ago, but the timing wasn’t right. He pitched the idea again last year, and everyone was on board.

“I grew up on the water and I got the opportunity to grow up crabbing and fishing and just enjoying the outdoors,” Smith said. After working for the division for two decades, he thought it was important to expose young people to what the Marine Patrol does and the importance of the job.

The junior patrollers learned about navigation rules, the different types of fishing licenses and gear an officer could encounter, fisheries rules and how to identify fish, and how to tie knots. There was a lot of time spent on the boat, and the campers practiced “their knots every time we pull up somewhere,” Smith said.

The academy has “not been a bootcamp, but we’ve been a little bit structured, and they’ve done a really good job,” Smith said.

Smith has a 13-year-old son, and he thought that age range would be good, and it turned out to be, he said. “We’ve not had any issues between like the 12-year-olds and 15-year-olds. Everybody’s really come together as a team.”

The camp stresses the importance of knowing navigation rules.

“Know your role on the water because most other people don’t. So, if you know what you’re doing, then you can avoid a collision,” Smith said.

As for next year, Smith said the Marine Patrol wanted to see how well the first camp went and make sure that it was successful and beneficial.

“I can tell you right now, my opinion is it absolutely was,” Smith continued. “The kids came in very nervous Monday and wouldn’t talk. Now, they’ve given staff nicknames and are bonding with each other. There’s been a lot of growth and a lot of progress.”

Smith rubbed his hand over his scalp and said his nickname was Mr. Clean, noting that his head wasn’t completely shaved.

He added that there might need to be some adjustments for next year.

“I really wanted this to be called an academy and have cadets and be really structured,” Smith said. “If we get to continue to do this, I think we may structure it more of a camp atmosphere, because the kids have really enjoyed the cast- and seine-netting that we did yesterday and, and some of the fun stuff.”

And along with the fun came learning, Smith said.

“I told them on Day 1 that my three goals and priorities were safety and fun and education. And I wanted to make sure that it was done in that order. And we succeeded so far.”

Marine Patrol Maj. Jason Walker told Coastal Review while waiting for lunch that he was surprised at how much the campers liked learning about “observed activity scenarios” typical of the Marine Patrol’s work.

The campers were shown videos of observed activities, such as hook-and-line fishing and trolling, and were “really excited about being able to tell what license was required, what the violation was, if there was one,” Walker said. “They were just as excited about that as driving a boat.”

The campers were broken up into four teams. After choosing a name, each team made their own flag and affixed it to their skiff. In addition to team Mr. Clean, other teams were Osprey, High Speed and the Harpooners.

The team flags were Marine Patrol Officer Candace Rose’s idea.

Rose said that the teams participated each day in competitions. They have to perform skills, and whichever team does so most accurately or the quickest got the points. The team with the most points that day received a prize, such as fishing gear.

Rose has been with Marine Patrol for six years. Before that, she was with North Carolina State Parks for a decade, and spent time as a 4-H camp counselor.

Rose helped plan the camp and came up with a lot of ideas and activities. For this year, they decided to keep it simple.

“I taught the fishing gear and licenses portion and also how to do a Marine Patrol inspection,” Rose said. “Working with these kids has been a combination of two of my favorite things: teaching people and marine fisheries. Having them here has been a wonderful experience as far as their energy and their interest to learn and being able to teach them about something that I love.”

One highlight for Rose was seeing the campers “learn something new that they’ve never done before, especially some of the skills like using a cast net, or learning how to tie knots, and then seeing their confidence grow as they learn how to drive a boat,” Rose said.

“I can’t wait for next year already,” she added.

If resources are available, Rose said she could see the Marine Patrol hosting a larger camp next year.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the biologists are looking at something,” she noted, adding that some campers showed more interest in biology than law enforcement.

A handful of campers, including Lukas, 12, from Winterville, paused exploring the reserve and casting nets to share with Coastal Review what drew them to the camp.

Lukas explained that the academy “looked like a really fun experience” and that he had learned a lot, from docking skills to knot-tying skills — “a lot of stuff I didn’t know before.”

Lukas said one violation he learned about was disposal of evidence upon inspection, which is “basically, if you were to have something that is evidence to a crime and something illegal that you committed, and you were to throw it over the side of your boat or something.” This will result in a ticket and a fine.

Ivy, 12, a student at Morehead City Middle School, said she thought “it would be really cool” to learn about marine fisheries. She also learned how to drive a boat, about fisheries laws, and how researchers tag the fish. From a law enforcement perspective, Ivy said she liked learning how to talk to boaters, including asking for licenses and about what is on board. Ivy also said she learned about different navigation aids.

Ivy was on team High Speed, which earned its name in jest, “Because we’re slow, and we got lost yesterday,” she said.

Bella, a rising freshman at West Carteret High School, said she “always wanted to do this.” She had previously met patrol officers and “marine stuff” was appealing.

“So I said, well, let’s try,” Bella explained.

Bella, who was on team Mr. Clean, said with a laugh that “the team got its name because that’s Mr. Erik’s nickname.”

Alexander from Clermont, Florida, said his mom asked if there was a camp he would like to go to this summer, “I said Marine Patrol camp and this is the only one available.”

The rising ninth grader said going to a Marine Patrol camp has been on his agenda for a few years, adding he plans to have a career with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, “and this was the closest thing that we could find,” he said.

Alexander said he learned how to operate a skiff, to identify different species in North Carolina, and how to use 30-foot seine net and a 6-foot cast net.

“This has been one of the best camps that I’ve ever been to, because of a lot of outdoor experience, a lot more knowledge than most summer camps. Especially if you live on the water, it’s really useful to learn how to operate a boat and learn different fish species and regulations and so you don’t get a ticket,” Alexander said.

Walker, with the Marine Patrol, told Coastal Review after the camp concluded that the response from students and parents was amazing.

“The hard work and teamwork of the students and staff are really what made the academy effective.  We are already discussing ways to improve the academy for next year. I do want to thank James River Equipment, Boardwalk Screen Printing and West Marine for sponsoring the event,” he said.

Jacksonville officials are celebrating its environmental education summer program offered each summer since 1999 to area high school students.

Called the New River Institutes at Sturgeon City, originally named Sturgeon City Institutes, a celebration of the program being in its 25th year is scheduled from 5-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 26, at Sturgeon City Environmental Education Center, 50 Court St.

Student and teaching alumni, current students and educators, community partners and residents are welcome to the event being offered at no charge.

The Wilson Bay Initiative and the Sturgeon City projects were motivated by residents. The New River was so degraded that in 1995, when a huge hog house lagoon escaped its berm and flooded into the river, the predictions of large fish kills and sudden death to the river did not occur, because the river was already so degraded, officials said.

Around the same time, Jacksonville City Council decided to close the old Wilson Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant and open an environmentally friendly and expandable land treatment site.

In 1999 the first group of high school students participated in the Sturgeon City Institutes. That same year, they discovered the first signs that life was returning to the river. 

Close to 100 students are registered for 2024 taking place June 24-28. Though registration is closed for this year, Jacksonville City Council supports plans to increase that number in the future by extending the institutes to two weeks and to look at opportunities throughout the year, officials said.