Winter Wildlife Tracking

Click here for notes on our February, 2011 Winter Tracking Workshop for Conservation Commissions

Tracks of red fox near Upper Plains Road

Volunteers in Salisbury have finished their fifth winter of surveying wildlife tracks in the snow. Each year since 2006, five to ten sections of Salisbury’s roads have been examined several times for the tracks of animals crossing the road. About 170 walking surveys have been completed on 23 different mile-long stretches of road. More than 2000 sets of tracks have been recorded, and 17 species of mammals have been identified. All of the data have been compiled into a GIS-compatible database, and the Addison County Regional Planning Commission has produced the first maps showing results for all four years.

A tracking survey along Maple Street

In February, 2011 we hosted a workshop for conservation commissions in other towns and other interested groups which are interested in starting winter tracking programs.

Here are some of the resources at this website for anyone interested in the methods and results of our project so far:

Mapped results for 2006 through 2010

Field data collection instructions_                      A news post about this project

Our Wildlife and Plant Observation blog_        Mapped results from 2007

Salisbury Winter Tracking Background

TrackTalk, the wildlife corridors forum

Here is a three minute video that Chris Fastie used in a presentation about our tracking results at the Vermont Statewide Conservation Conference on April 2, 2011. The video has no audio, and was paused 27 times during the course of a 20 minute presentation as Chris explained the project, the results, and how we might put our new knowledge to work. More about how the video was made here.