For the fall 2016 Northeastern Transportation and Wildlife Conference, SCI partners - Vermont's Agency of Transportation and Agency of Natural Resources - are organizing a panel session and a workshop focusing on the use of wildlife cameras to assess functional connectivity. The panel session will include presentations about wildlife camera and tracking studies around the SCI region. The workshop will provide an opportunity for practitioners to discuss methods, protocols, and lessons learned. I nterested in helping to organize these sessions or in participating? C ontac t James Brady or Jens Hilke.

Thanks to a grant from the New Brunswick Wildlife Trust Fund, SCI partner Nature Conservancy of Canada has launched a wildlife camera study to better understand the use of roads and adjacent land by wildlife in the Chignecto Isthmus linkage, a narrow 23- kilometer (14-mile) strip of land joining mainland Nova Scotia to New Brunswick and the rest of the continent. The study will focus on a landscape pinch point - previously identified through modeling - where three highways cut across the isthmus and have the potential to create multiple barriers to wildlife movement. Results of the camera study, combined with future winter tracking efforts and analysis of road kill data, will be shared with the New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, along with recommendations for possible mitigation solutions. Learn more.

In our newest linkage, the Green Mountains to Hudson Highlands, SCI partners like to tell the story of the mink that does land protection. In western Massachusetts, The Nature Conservancy and the Hilltown Land Trust are working to close on two parcels that will be conserved thanks to the journey of an individual mink who slid, leapt, and hunted his/her way down these parcels of private land before crossing a major road to get to state-owned wildlife habitat land. The mink's tracks (shown in the photo) and story captured the attention and generosity of the landowners, who will be donating their land to help fill gaps in a wildlife corridor within the linkage. The partnership is now assessing road-stream crossings on this road (and many others) as they work to achieve a habitat connectivity vision through the linkage.  Learn more.

In the Canadian portion of the Northern Green Mountains linkage, SCI partners, including Appalachian Corridor and Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), are collaborating to expand the Green Mountain Nature Reserve, which is currently 7000 hectares (17,000 acres) and provides habitat for large-ranging mammals including moose, bobcat, and black bear. Last fall, NCC staff had the opportunity to capture images of the reserve's natural beauty using Google Trekker, a 19-kilogram (42-pound) backpack-mounted camera.  Once processed, the images will be stitched together and published in Google Maps to tell the story of this special place and its importance for habitat connectivity,  and to allow Quebecers and people around the world to visit the reserve virtually. Learn more.