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Now is a great time to search for winter tracks (PDF) or other animal signs visible in the snow. It can be fun to be a detective and figure out what animals have been walking through your yard or across a trail. Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Snow conditions can make a difference in a track’s appearance—wet snow captures a print better than powdery snow.
- Members in the dog family (coyote, fox, or dogs) will usually leave claw prints above the toes, while the cat family (bobcat, housecat) will not. You should see four toes on both front and back feet for both families.
- Rodents, such as squirrels, chipmunks, mice, muskrats, and voles, usually have four toes on the front feet and five on the back. Claws may or may not be seen.
- Bring a notebook, camera, or field guide with you.
- Sometimes an animal’s droppings, or scat, can help you identify it—a rabbit’s looks like small balls of sawdust.
Find out more in the Become a Winter Wildlife Detective (PDF) issue of Conservationist for Kids.
In case you missed it, check out the recent Winter Wildlife Tracks and Scat Identification Video on DEC’s Facebook page.
Photo by Sandy Van Vranken.
The following are the most recent notices pertaining to public lands in the Adirondacks. Please check the 
DEC’s Colonel William F. Fox Memorial 
Town of North Elba
Some of the most important trees in your woodlot are the ones that are no longer alive. Large, standing dead or dying trees—called snags—are an important part of healthy forests and a critical habitat feature for wildlife. They provide places for many birds and mammals to forage, den, nest, perch, and roost. Snags are very important for cavity-nesting birds like 
Debar Mountain Complex Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS) and Draft UMP Public Comment Opportunities: DEC and APA will be conducting two virtual public hearings on Tuesday, January 19, 2021. Due to restrictions related to COVID-19, these hearings will not be held in person. To participate, please select one of the hyperlinks below at the scheduled time:
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos has announced an ice fishing creel survey, conducted on the waters of Lake Champlain until March 2021. The survey is part of a two-year effort to gather data from both ice and open water anglers to server as a foundation to help DEC Fisheries to better understand their expectations. The survey’s will also benefit management actions on Lake Champlain.
A few simple changes can have a positive impact for your local recycling program. By learning the “ins and outs” of your local program, you can recycle right this year and help clear up confusion about items that cause contamination in recycling streams across NY.
Latest NYS DEC Forest Ranger actions:
The Three Lakes Tract is an area of commercially managed forestland, composed of northern hardwood forest, Hitchcock, Grass, and Moose Ponds. It shares around 4.1 miles of boundaries with the State Forest Preserve lands (the Ha-De-Ron-Dah Wilderness and Independence River wild Forest) as well as 2.5 miles with the Big Moose Tract Conservation Easement.
We look at January 1st as a new chapter, a time to start fresh. However, if you find the idea of drafting up a new list of New Year’s resolutions a bit too abstract, our 30-day wasted food challenge might be a fit, focusing on doing small tasks each day in order to build habits that will stick.
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