The March Photo of the Month is this black bear cub that was photographed by volunteer Margaret Krotowski!

It is good to remember that black bear cubs receive lots of attention and care from their mothers. It is very likely that the mother of the black bear in this photograph was close by. Black bears stay with their mothers until they are about a year and a half old, when they separate. If you see a black bear cub, make sure to be at a safe distance so as to avoid disturbing the cub and its mother!

(More Info On Black Bears)

 If you see any bears and have pictures, send them to us using this link here.  

Reminder to anyone with a Ring camera or similar security system installed; these systems help us collect important data on the presence and absence of mammals in your area. We welcome you to join our team of registered volunteers who submit photos once a month. Having regular reports from a fixed location allows us to learn even more about mammals in your area than individual sightings.  New volunteers can register here 

MassMammals member Kaitlyn Huang teaching a class at Hatfield Elementary School! 

MassMammals was recently featured in a news article by the Daily Hampshire Gazette! Our very own Mimi Hamada-Peña and Kaitlyn Huang were highlighted during their recent trip to Hatfield Elementary School! The article talks about MassMammals and our use of trail cameras to help map mammal populations around the state.

An important part of the project that is mentioned is our education side! Our education team visits schools to get students interested in science! It is important to show students of all ages that science is all around them and that getting involved can be very easy! 

Read more about their visit by clicking this link to the article!

One project we're currently working on involves incorporating black bear sightings from our volunteers into a species distribution model. Here's a bit more on what that means. Right now, we have locations of black bear sightings from volunteers (see this link for what the map looks like!). Ideally, we want to use these sightings to predict the probability that a bear is in a given location. For instance, if we take a look at that map, we have very few sightings in Cape Cod, so we would assign a very low probability of bears to that area. Models allow us to get these probabilities in a formal way. 

The challenge with modeling volunteer sightings is that they are influenced both by where bears are and by where volunteers are. The below density plot looks at the distribution of forest cover at MassBears sightings. We have the fewest sightings in areas with the highest forest cover (the density of sightings dips when the proportion of forest cover = 1). This is probably because volunteers are less likely to spend most of their time in heavily forested areas, and not because bears don't like forests. There aren't many methods that have been developed to deal with this feature in volunteer data, so we're experimenting with new ways to correct for the influence of volunteer presence on the distribution of MassBears sightings. 

This model will allow us to understand black bear distribution in Massachusetts at a much broader scale than other field collection methods. We can answer questions about the extent to which the black bear population is expanding eastward, and how likely bears are to spend time in areas with greater housing density. Our results will also inform the modeling work of other community science projects looking at species distributions around the world. This research would not be possible without your continued contribution to the project! Feel free to reach out to citscima@amherst.edu with further questions about how we are using volunteer sightings.

Histogram showing how the density of MassBear sightings changes under different proportions of forest cover.

Over the following months, MassMammals will be showcasing new members on social media and newsletters. If you are following our Facebook or Instagram, you may have seen our new member spotlight for Alex on the data and outreach team!

Meet our new member, Alex!

Alex is a sophomore at Amherst College who joined MassMammals in October of last year. She is majoring in biology and psychology!

A fun fact about Alex is that she has two dogs, a cat, and a chinchilla!

When asked why she joined, Alex said, "I hope I can help inspire the community to get more involved in science and spread awareness of mammal wellbeing; we share this planet with so much more than ourselves!”

Alex helps run the social media accounts, reaches out to volunteers, and plans farmers' market visits. 

If you see her at your local farmers market tabling for MassMammals, don't hesitate to say hello!