Keeping Track

How do you know if you can drink your well water? You test it. 

How do you know if you can grow good vegetables in your garden soil? You test it.

For centuries, miners took canaries down into the mine shafts with them to test the air. If the canary stopped singing, they knew the air would soon be unsafe for them to breathe.

We can tell a lot about the health of our own neighborhood's water and soil by observing the wildlife who live here with us. Some species of wildlife have particular preferences for good food and good neighbors, just as we do. If the water gets too dirty, or the land can no longer produce food good for them, or if getting to the food becomes impossible, the wildlife disappears.

In 1996, PLC volunteers began track and sign identification training with Susan Morse, renowned naturalist and founder of the non-profit organization Keeping Track, Incorporated.

The Keeping Track program taught us how to monitor our neighborhood for the presence of six species: moose, bear, bobcat, mink, otter and fisher. These six species have specific preferences for territory and water quality that makes them excellent healthy habitat "canaries".

We also learned to identify the other species who live in our neighborhood, and what their presence – or absence – tells us about the health of our habitat.

The PLC Keeping Track teams have been monitoring between three and five survey tracks each year since the program began.  A KT team consists of between three and six people who walk each of these survey tracks four times year, once for each season. Each survey track runs between two and two-and-a-half miles long, by sixty feet wide.

The PLC adds and removes new survey tracks periodically, as surveyed open space becomes either protected, or lost to development. The PLC uses the information that KT teams discover to keep landowners informed about the resources they maintain. Over the years, landowners have protected more than 2000 acres in the Piscataquog River watershed formerly monitored by KT teams.

How can you get involved? 

Start Tracking!  Join us on a survey track. You can learn to identify wildlife track and sign on-the-job. You can take a course in KT protocol track monitoring. Team survey runs take from 3 to 5 hours on a weekend morning.  You should bring water and a snack, and wear clothing and footwear appropriate for bushwhacking. In the winter, if we are lucky to have a lot of snow, you will need to wear snowshoes.  We have some extras you can borrow if you would like to try winter tracking and do not have snowshoes.

We could also use help with field photography, writing stories, and on-line data logging. KT teams keep a data log of wildlife sign observed.  They also record significant finds with photographs and stories. If you like to get out in the woods and would like to take track and sign photographs, or write up survey stories, you can help the KT teams. If you are an armchair explorer with computer savvy, you can help create the KT survey log database, design and create web pages, or add to a GIS database for wildlife monitoring.

For more information about the Keeping Track organization, visit their web site – http://www.keepingtrack.org/

To join PLC’s Keeping Track program visit our Volunteer Opportunities page or Contact Us for more information.