Cameras Being Placed Again This Year

Hannah Northey has an article in the Harrisonburg (VA) Daily News Record of 30 January 2008 titled "Scientists, Volunteers Use Cameras In Hunt For Big Mammals; Photos May Document Whether Cougars Live Along Appalachian Trail." In short,

"For the second consecutive year, about 100 volunteers in Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland will photograph animals in the spring with infrared cameras along a 570-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail. The section to be monitored runs from the southern border of Virginia to the northern tip of Maryland, including parts of Rockingham, Page and Augusta counties.

"The program, headed by William McShea, a wildlife ecologist with the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park, is designed to protect large mammals that have been understudied."

As a part of the second year of the Mega-Transect study of the Appalachian Trail, finding evidence of large mammals is only part of the show.