Tracking Wildlife in Connecticut:
KEEPING TRACK
Twenty-five volunteers from ten northeast Connecticut towns made two trips to Vermont in the winter of 2001 to learn how to identify tracks and other signs of wildlife as part of the a conservation project called “Keeping Track”. This project is a cooperative effort by the State of Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Goodwin Conservation Center and Connecticut Audubon Center at Pomfret. Susan Morse, founder of Keeping Track, Inc., led the snowshoe-clad hikers through black bear, bobcat and fisher habitat. Volunteers learned how to read stories in the snow as they located tracks, animal droppings, marks on trees and signs of feeding.

As agricultural lands have been allowed to re-forest, populations of deer, coyote and other mammals have grown throughout Connecticut. Sightings of black bear, moose and fisher show these species are moving south into their former ranges. Records of the Connecticut’s DEP show densely populated parts of Connecticut are experiencing increasing conflicts between the needs of people and the needs of wildlife. 

During this time of increased development pressures, it is critical for the towns to preserve large tracts of open space connected by wildlife corridors. Trained citizen scientists can contribute important data necessary for making land use decisions that insure protection of local wildlife habitats. The data will also be useful to conservation organizations such as The Green Valley Institute, local Land Trusts and The Nature Conservancy, which has office space in the CAS Center at Pomfret for their Quinebaug Highlands Project

The volunteers involved in the project are being trained by the staff of Keeping Track, Inc., a Vermont-based, non-profit organization with a mission to train citizen scientists. “Keeping Track is a community wildlife monitoring program that teaches volunteers how to detect and interpret animal signs,” said Susan Morse. “Through increased understanding of the principles of habitat selection by target species (such as black bear, mink, bobcat, otter and fisher) volunteers learn how to apply this knowledge to a precise data collection program that, over time, creates a picture of habitat usage in a town or region”.

The Keeping Track Project of Northeast Connecticut received funding from the Quinebaug Shetucket Heritage Corridor Partnership Program in 2001 to initiate the wildlife monitoring project in the corridor, and received funding again this year to help maintain and expand the program. Support has also come from local conservation groups, employers and the volunteer monitors who pay to receive the initial training and volunteer their time for data collection over the ensuing years.

“We’re a diverse group of educators, carpenters, retirees, DEP employees, conservation commission members, ranging in age from 26 to 60,” said Paula Coughlin, director of the local Keeping Track Project. “ But what we have in common is a shared interest in wildlife and open space preservation.”

The Vermont training was followed up by three days of training in northeastern Connecticut last spring. Trained monitors are now busy hiking on most weekends, practicing their skills and deciding on locations for permanent transect lines for collecting the data, which will become part of a database available to help towns make informed land use decisions. The Keeping Track Project of Northeast Connecticut is working to send a second team of interested people to Vermont for training. For more information, call (860) 974-0383.

Archived from CT Audubon Society News Spring 2002 Copyright Connecticut Audubon Society Reuse by Permission Only