The July Photo of the Month submitted by volunteer Andrew Logan was clipped from a video submission of this bobcat pausing by a trail camera. The video is not long, but upon full viewing, one can notice the bobcat's curiosity! The bobcat pauses, perks up an ear while tilting its head, and stares at the camera before ducking and scampering away. 

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 

Our team will resume preparing for and attending farmers markets across Massachusetts at the beginning of the school year this August.

While we have established a relationship with the local Amherst community and many neighboring towns, we always seek to fill our "data gaps," which are locations in the state where we are not receiving data. Our team, with the help of volunteer sighting submissions and news reports regarding mammals, can study population changes and developments.

The more volunteers we have submitting sightings or emailing and asking questions about mammal situations in their area, the better our lab can inform the public about our state wildlife. 

Visit our website to interact with our Sightings Map

You can control the map layers to view specific mammals by toggling the button located at the bottom right of the map on the website.

As the school year approaches, our MassMammals team is gearing up to create new community presentations and project experiences, while also revisiting past goals and setting new ones. While these will be revisited in our first meeting back, so far we plan on: 

1. Collecting the remaining cameras and processing their data from our setup in the Holyoke Range 

2. Exploring new questions we want to ask with our data and potentially working on a new presentation or publication with our findings. We welcome any questions or suggestions from our MassMammals community! Please contact us by email or through the forms on our website.

3. Attend farmers' markets as mentioned above to spread our interests and map coverage across Massachusetts.

4. Collaborate with more student groups at Amherst College and potentially UMass Amherst.

Call For Photos!  Please send us your photos of bears in your backyard--and ask your neighbors and friends as well.  If you have NextDoor, this can be a great way to reach folks near where you live and invite them to join us in this project.

You, our treasured volunteers, have immense curiosity about the mammals in Massachusetts. For the past two years, we have been working with your data to create a model of black bear distribution in the state. We look forward to updating you on that project soon. In the meantime, we are interested in thinking about what bears are doing when you see them in your yard.  Please send us photos/observations of what your backyard bears are up to!

Meet Ben!

What is your class year? 

Class of 2028 (Sophomore) 

What is your major? 

Chemistry and Math

What is a fun fact about you? 

A fun fact about me is that I have two dogs, a yorkie named Jerry and a shih tzu named Zoey. 

Why did you join MassMammals? 

I was drawn to people involved in the MassMammals project. Everyone on the team loves to work together and the citizen science aspect of the project allows us to work with many people of different ages and backgrounds. On the education team, I get to go into classrooms and interact with kids that are passionate about tracking and protecting the wildlife around their school which is a cool experience.