The May Photo of the Month is this picture of a black bear captured by volunteer Lynda Grybko. Thank you Lynda for submitting this photo!

This summer we are collecting information on the relationship between human trail use and local wildlife in the Holyoke Range! Our group will be deploying trail cameras across the Holyoke range to monitor how human recreational activity impacts the behavior and composition of wildlife. As with all of our projects, we will ensure the privacy of people who are seen on our trail cameras. All photos of people will be in a secure password-protected folder and deleted after the project is completed. If you want more information about our new project, check out the page on our website!

For any more mammal sightings, submit any photos to the form 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 

Last month, two of our members visited The Jones Library to give a presentation about the MassMammals project! James and Ayres presented in the evening to people from the community to inform them about what MassMammals does. Their presentation included pictures from volunteers, some history of bear populations in Massachusetts, and what our group is aiming for now and in the future. 

Something that came up was the importance of working with the community when gathering data like this. Our group relies on data from the community, and if members of the community do not know that we exist, then we are missing out on valuable information. When more people know about the project, we will receive more volunteer submissions and data points, allowing us to create more accurate models of behavior and distribution.  Check out current sightings on our map!

Mimi and Sofia tabling for MassMammals!

At the beginning of this month we had two of our members table at the Linguistic Heritage celebration held by the town of Amherst! Sofia and Mimi were spreading the word about MassMammals and how we have been visiting public schools in the area and teaching about mammals in English and Spanish! Our education team has spent a lot of time translating lesson plans into Spanish to allow greater accessibility to science for young students. These dual language lessons have also facilitated students who are native English speakers to learn Spanish at a younger age, which helps create a stronger bilingual base for them in later years. 

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 Sofia!

Meet our new member, Sofia!

Sofia is a rising sophomore at Amherst College who joined MassMammals in October of last year. She is a biology major and might also major in Spanish!

A fun fact about Sofia is that she lived in Madrid, Spain, for a month with a host family!

When asked why she joined, Sofia said, "I joined the Massmammals team because I love wildlife and getting to work with and learn from my community.  ”

On the data and outreach side, Sofia maintains volunteer photo and video submissions. On the education side, Sofia connects with local Spanish-speaking communities through storytelling events for children!

We are so glad to have her on board!