The striped bass is fun to catch and good to eat. It’s also enigmatic, historically prone to wild fluctuations in numbers and to inexplicable disappearances from area waters. And with the annual Island fishing derby opening Sunday, the old question is being asked again: where are all the fish?

Cooper Gilkes 3rd, an Island fisherman for more than 50 years and the owner of Coop’s Bait and Tackle in Edgartown, is concerned, for catch numbers seem to be in sharp decline.

A pair of Siberian huskies who got loose last month and killed several chickens were spared from humane euthanization on Tuesday after the Oak Bluffs selectmen agreed to instead ban one of the dogs from town and ordered the other one housed in a secure pen made of concrete and chain-link fence.

Several Island school employees have been punished for improper use of a school vehicle, using an off-Island school van to drive to a wedding on the Cape.

They were caught red-handed by Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter, a frugally-minded Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School committee member and West Tisbury police officer.

Habitat Needs Help

Habitat for Humanity is seeking volunteers, skilled and unskilled, to assist in the construction of the house located at 21 11th street in Edgartown, off the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road. The group is working today and Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on framing. If you would like to help, call Bill Aitken at 508-693-3429 or 617-504-0694 or visit online habitatmv.org.

They are proud to be a vehicle-free Vineyard household: instead of using a car to get around the Island, Rebekah Blu and her husband Adam Thibodeau — owners of the Midnight Mermaid gallery in Edgartown — bike, walk and take the Vineyard Transportation Authority. So when regular summer visitor Deidre Moncy and her boyfriend Dennis Mount approached the couple wanting to use the gallery to host a fundraiser for the the Clean Planet Fund’s auto program, they thought they were just the right people to do it.