Our October Photo of the Month is of this black bear  roaming around a backyard during the nighttime! Thank you to volunteer Jessica Smith for submitting this photo! If you have a Ring door camera or other type of security camera by your front or back door, look out for any animals that may pay you a visit!

If you see a black bear in your yard, do not fear. It is common for them to come searching for food, especially if you have uncovered trash that could attract them. Covering any exposed food should help minimize the number of black bears that come wandering near your house. Experts say that if you encounter a black bear you should make yourself look big while backing away slowly. 

Our undergraduate MassMammals Education Team members work with local K-12 classrooms to provide K-12 students with the opportunity to participate in our project and  learn about local wildlife and ecosystems. We partner with the Center for Community Engagement to provide classrooms with trail cameras that allow for data collection near the school. Teachers collaborate with undergraduates to develop a plan for use of the camera in the classroom and select related lessons aligned with state standards.  Undergraduates then visit the classrooms in person or over Zoom to teach these lessons as part of our citizen/community science initiative. 

Since we implemented our project, we have continually worked to adapt and refine our approach so that we can provide participants with a positive and engaging learning experience.  To help us do so--and to understand the impact of our work--we interview K-12 teachers at the end of the year to ask about their students' and their own experiences.

We reviewed responses from the past couple of years and are thrilled to report that we are seeing positive impacts on K-12 students, particularly with respect to scientific engagement.  Members of the Education Team recently submitted a research article titled "Learning by doing: A multi-level analysis of the impact of citizen science education" to Science Education, an internationally renowned educational journal that "publishes original articles on the latest issues and trends occurring internationally in science curriculum, instruction, learning, policy and preparation of science teachers with the aim to advance our knowledge of science education theory and practice."

We are excited to announce that our submitted paper was published recently in Science Education, and can be accessed online here. If you are interested in learning more about our findings, please email us at citsciedu@amherst.edu.

Thank you as always for all of your support! Creation and continuation of this project relies on each of you, which in turn allows us to create more learning opportunities for local K-12 students and budding community scientists in MA and beyond.

Screenshot from mass.gov/coyotes

The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife has recently created a new landing page on their website to provide resources to the public about coexisting peacefully with coyotes, mass.gov/coyotes.

The new landing page provides lots of detailed information, including FAQ about coyotes, how to prevent conflict with coyotes, and how to protect your pets from coyotes and other wildlife. There are three main steps that you can take to prevent conflicts if you live in an area where there have been several coyote sightings:

1) Removing human-associated food sources, especially bird-feeders, as well as compost, trash, and produce/livestock

2) Protecting pets by keeping pets on a leash under direct supervision and feeding pet indoors to reduce attraction to food sources

3) Hazing coyotes: Hazing is a technique used to deter an animal from an area or change its behavior to prevent it from repeatedly returning to your neighborhood and prevent habituation. Hazing techniques include intimidating coyotes by waving your arms, clapping, yelling, or blowing a whistle, and spraying a hose or throwing small objects like tennis balls at the coyote.

To learn more, please visit the new webpage!

Sightings Map can be found at massmammals.wordpress.amherst.edu

MassMammals was featured again in The Daily Hampshire Gazette recently in late September. Outreach Group members Kea Cabaniero and Anna Zhou were interviewed about their roles in the project, along with project leader Dr. Thea Kristensen. The article provides information about what to do if you encounter a bear, along with reasons why collecting accurate data from various counties across MA for our project is incredibly important.

Right now around half of all the sightings submitted are from Franklin and Hampshire counties (where our project is based), leaving some gaps in the map data. One of our current goals is to reach out to more volunteers from these underrepresented areas in both Western and Eastern MA to help provide as accurate of a picture of mammal distributions around Massachusetts as possible. Check out the article to find more information about the project and its members, and please share with family and friends from around the state!