PUTNEY — Patti Smith of the Brattleboro Environmental Education Center (BEEC) will give pointers on wildlife tracking on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. at the Putney Cares Barn on Kimball Hill Road, Putney.
The program is sponsored by the Putney Conservation Commission which is welcoming back last winter's trackers and inviting others to join its Wildlife Corridor Tracking Program.
Smith's talk will answer questions raised by some of the more than 30 volunteers who searched for paw and hoof prints along 34 sections of Putney roads last winter. These questions include how to distinguish different members of the canid family (including red and gray foxes), and different members of the cat and weasel families. She also will describe how prints alter in different snow conditions.
The Putney Conservation Commission's Wildlife Corridor Tracking program was designed with help from Jens Hilke of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.
Using a method called “structural analysis,” Hilke, Smith, and members of the Conservation Commission identified those sections of Putney's roads most likely to be crossed by wildlife moving in search of adequate food, water, cover and mates. At least two volunteers were assigned to track each road section over the winter.
Because of a lack of snow, most routes were only walked twice last year, but hopes are high for a snowy winter this year.
Road sections assignments will be confirmed and new volunteers added after Smith's talk. The sections are about one mile long, and most provide beautiful, wooded walks with few houses. Each pair of volunteers is asked to walk their road section at least five times during the winter, and to record where wide-ranging animals - such as bear, bobcat, Eastern coyote, moose, deer, fox, turkey, and fisher - have crossed.
The program will continue through the winter of 2015 -2016, but volunteers are only asked to commit to one winter of tracking. Residents don't have to become a volunteer to come to the meeting and learn how to identify some of the animals who share the woods with humans.