Black Bear Cub photo by Susan Morse

Bobcats, Mountain Lions, Moose, and More:

Wildlife Slide Show
with Susan Morse of
Keeping Track®

photographer, naturalist, &
habitat identification specialist
with more than 30 years
of tracking experience

See amazing photos of mammals in the wild
Hear mammal calls and answers to your questions
Get a feel for the daily lives of wildlife in our region
Learn how you can discover & interpret more wildlife sign

Held Wednesday, September 22, 2010

at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Pittsfield, MA

Have you ever seen an animal track while walking in the woods and wondered what animal made it? Wouldn’t it be nice to know, not only what animal made it, but where they might have been going and what they might have been looking for? If you’ve had these sorts of thoughts, wouldn’t it be even better if you knew the answers to these questions would help save the land that animal needs to survive? That is just what nationally recognized naturalist and habitat identification specialist, Susan Morse of Keeping Track® can teach you to do.

Bobcat in the grassland photo by Susan C Morse

Susan Morse returned with another incomparable Wildlife Slide Show with an emphasis on our cats – Bobcat and Mountain Lion – but including many of our other large mammals here in the northeast – Bear, Moose, Fisher, and many more.

We had a great turn out – nearly 200 people – for this event. Thank you all for coming!

Susan Morse, a nationally recognized naturalist and habitat specialist,  dazzled us with a slide show of her spectacular wildlife photos and an interactive talk on the biology and ecology of these mammals. Morse used humor, personal anecdotes, and her own voice to mimic the calls of many animals to impress on wildlife enthusiasts of all sorts the importance of landscape-level planning to protect wildlife habitat and corridors. Sue’s research has focused on cougar, bobcat, black bear, and Canada lynx.

Trackers in snow photo by Susan C Morse

Keeping Track^® was founded by Susan Morse in 1994 to teach adults and children how to observe, interpret, record, and monitor evidence of wildlife in their local communities. Sue coaches each team to include people with diverse interests. A team may have hunters and vegetarians, birders and trappers. While cooperating to gather data on local wildlife, each team develops a network of understanding that encourages collaboration and land use solutions beneficial to wildlife as well as humans.

Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) is looking for eighteen people who want to get out doors, have fun, and work hard to protect our wildlands by joining the Berkshire Wildlife Trackers program.  Participants sign on for six full-day training workshops in the field plus two classroom sessions. During the training, the following issues are addressed: detection and interpretation of tracks and sign of agreed upon focal species for your region (bear, moose, bobcat, fisher, mink, and otter), conservation biology as it relates to data collection and resulting land protection, forest ecology and plant identification as they relate to mammal uses of habitat, ‘search imaging’ – Sue Morse’s technique for predictably looking in the right places and finding sign, and an introduction to science-based field studies. The Keeping Track Project and Data Management Protocol is distributed to all trackers, to serve as the manual for developing a monitoring program and provide standards for data collection.

Whitetail Deer Scent Marking photo by Susan C Morse

Keeping Track teams usually provide their data to local and regional organizations so planning, conservation, development, and road construction decisions can be based on these scientifically gathered facts. During the last several years, 2500 acres of habitat were conserved  in Northwestern Vermont because Keeping Track’s monitoring program shared data and collaborated with a dozen state and community-based organizations.

Keeping Track is a citizen-science program. “By engaging people in monitoring their local wildlife, Morse turns the notoriously abstract issues of biodiversity and habitat fragmentation into an earthy, firsthand relationship with wild animals on their home turf” says Audubon magazine.

During the Wildlife Slide Show, participants will hear about Keeping Track’s Wildlife Monitoring Training program and have an opportunity to join the Berkshire Wildlife Trackers group that will start training in October.

Sue Morse and Keeping Track^® have been featured in: National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and in magazines such as Smithsonian, Audubon, The Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation’s Ranger Rick, Adirondack Life, Vermont Life, Orion, and Wild Earth. Her photography and life work are featured in The Woods Scientist, part of the Houghton Mifflin Company’s “Scientist in the Field” series.

The Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) and Berkshire Natural Resources Council hosted this event.  For more information visit BEAT’s Berkshire Wildlife Trackers section of our website, or contact BEAT at team@thebeatnews.org or 413-230-7321.