Friends of the Moors

A space dedicated to the Restoration of the West End Marsh, Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

A gathering of concerned citizens, science, politics, art, and conversation to advance the healing of the Moors.

“Friends of the Moors” and this website have been initiated by Carey Morning on behalf of the many lives that depend on the salt marsh, and at the behest of a hawk. All photos have been taken in the Moors.

This is what some of the marsh looks like now, glistening with healthy spartina grass, a home and nourishment for many creatures, a buffer against flooding and storm surge, and an excellent carbon sink.

But with each passing day, more and more of the marsh looks like this, as the overpopulation of the purple marsh crab consumes the spartina grass, and its centuries-old sediment bed is washed away.

The hope of Friends of the Moors is to cultivate awareness, advocacy, and action in the community, to help move the powers that be to undertake the restoration of the marsh. This will initially involve the Town acquiring funding for a final feasibility study on opening Long Point Dike, to enable tidal flushing of the marsh, allowing predators of the purple marsh crab to enter. It will also involve ongoing research into other restorative measures to ensure the healthy future of our beautiful, fertile, and climatically crucial salt marsh. Please check out our resources for more details.

Your signature and vote may be essential to this effort, so please subscribe for updates below. AND PLEASE VOTE ON APRIL 3RD to fund the completion of the feasibility study.

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Carey Morning

About me and other relevant things

I am an American, living in Edinburgh, Scotland, and have spent many hours over many yearly visits to Provincetown, wandering blissfully, mostly at dawn, in the West End salt marsh, known locally as The Moors. Its secret lives and tidal rhythms have astonished and nourished me without fail.

A couple of years ago I became aware of the die-back in the marsh, which is a heart-breaking discovery for anyone who loves it. I wrote a somewhat desperate email to Steven Smith, a plant ecologist at the Cape Cod National Seashore, who responded immediately with “We feel your pain”. I am ever grateful for his sympathy and for all the information he has shared about the purple crab’s decimation of the spartina grass, and about his experiments in restoration.

On my last day in the marsh that year, getting my last licks at sundown, something strange and wondrous happened. I had on occasion seen hawks out there, but whenever they saw me they headed away. On that evening a hawk actually approached, circling closer and closer above me until it was a mere ten feet over my head. When it finally flew off I felt it had spoken something like “Don’t forget us”. So even though I am not an ecologist or particularly an activist, or even a local resident, I have felt compelled, especially by that encounter, to do what I can to learn about the problems and needs of the marsh and to share with the people of Provincetown.

It hasn’t been straightforward to figure out what has and hasn’t been happening at the local government level to solve the difficulties. It’s a bit of a tangled and confusing story, going back to at least 2006, and we are in the middle of it. My Independent article, “Standstill on the Breakwater as Moors Decline”, on the resource page, outlines the basics as far as I could gather them.

My hope is that this website will be a place where people can learn and share and hopefully be inspired to act, as we learn what actions are needed. The first thing seems to be to get an article on the warrant for the April 2023 Town Meeting for funding the Army Corps of Engineers’ final feasibility study on opening the Breakwater to begin healing the marsh.

I have been helped on this journey by Stephen Smith, and also Larry Oliver, Chief of the Environmental Branch, New England District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Tim Famulare, Provincetown Conservation agent, Gordon Peabody, director of Safe Harbor Environmental Services, ecologist Mark Adams, Shellfish Constable Stephen Wisbauer, Dennis Minsky, conservationist, Mary DeRocco, and Ed Miller, editor at the Provincetown Independent. My thanks to you all, and to the marsh for all the gifts it so freely gives.

Maybe we can give something back. Please join Friends of the Moors and we can try.