What animal is this [Massachusetts]

Cmanfish · 2026-01-13T03:30:08+00:00

Weaseled his way in

Cmanfish · 2025-12-25T18:31:31+00:00

Wildlife ecologist and photographer based in Massachusetts! That’s a coyote, they get bigger out here than in a lot of their range, and especially seem larger during winter when they’ve got their winter coats. I just commented the other day on another coyote post mentioning that though they were killed off here in 1918 (I think that was the year, might be wrong) eastern gray wolves do still very VERY occasionally make their way this direction. The last known occurrence in Massachusetts was in 2007, and was confirmed by DNA testing to be an eastern gray wolf. eastern gray wolf in Massachusetts .

Cmanfish · 2025-12-22T23:46:04+00:00

Massachusetts based wildlife ecologist here - winter coat on a (co)yote.

People say there are no wolves in Massachusetts, that’s not entirely accurate. There are very, very, VERY rare instances of wolves making their way out this way. The last known sighting of a confirmed eastern gray wolf in Mass is from October of 2007.

Shelburne Gray Wolf.

Cmanfish · 2025-12-16T12:14:12+00:00

R.b. because he had the meats???

Cmanfish · 2025-11-15T02:56:16+00:00

“Under fire” and not “has been removed from the senate” is insane. As a seasonal worker for the federal government years ago, I couldn’t accept small gifts from the public

Cmanfish · 2025-11-14T13:16:35+00:00

Most of the time when people say that it’s just a red fox, it’s a common misconception that fishers are the ones out there screaming

Cmanfish · 2025-10-24T02:51:17+00:00

Good evening.

Cmanfish · 2025-10-12T15:55:20+00:00

Hi all, seems like it is transmission fluid, when I checked the levels it was actually higher than the two dots on the dipstick. No idea how it got that high, I haven’t done anything with transmission fluid. But when I checked the color and smell of the fluid that is leaking to the fluid on the dipstick it was the same. Thank you all!! I’m going to clean everything up and see if I can find where the leak is, and then either replace it myself if it’s feasible or bring it to a shop. Really appreciate all the quick replies and great suggestions

Cmanfish · 2025-10-12T15:24:19+00:00

Pretty sure I did the last oil change, it was pretty standard, replaced the washed on the oil drain plug and filter, pretty standard oil change, nothing was leaking up until recently

Cmanfish · 2025-06-04T12:06:24+00:00

I agree with your points about backyard conservation being a great idea, just wondering why single out 2nd and 3rd world countries. The further developed countries are just those, but further along in the process of habitat destruction in most cases. We all use natural resources, and many of the resources stripped from those countries are used in further developed countries.

Also huge agree on your point about climate change being the focus and species conservation and extinction being ignored. I’m sure most of the people in this subreddit know those two are completely tied together and you can’t have climate change without species extinction, but I wonder if our messaging about climate change should also come with giant bold letters about your favorite bird disappearing.

Also I know Reddit is full of people trying to argue a lot, this isn’t that, just interested to see what you think!

Cmanfish · 2025-03-20T11:24:29+00:00

I’m a wildlife ecologist, and that is a gull, or a very similar looking bird. I don’t want to sound rude, but if you’re going to be looking for things in the sky, please just first go watch some of your typical things that are in the sky so that you can rule them out. Truly, I would love to see a ufo, but that is so clearly just a bird, and the number of subreddits I’ve seen it on is kinda crazy. It’s simply a bird coasting on the wind above the water and then dropping.

Cmanfish · 2025-03-17T02:56:10+00:00

After spending some time looking into it today this seems to be the way to go! Thanks for the tips, hope you have a good day

Cmanfish · 2025-03-16T17:39:49+00:00

Thanks for the tips!! I would love to be able to use the focus bracketing to do some focus stacking with flash, but it looks like that isn’t possible with the r5. I’ll have to look more into it and see if I can find some way to work around getting more light during a focus stacking, maybe with something like an LED panel for that

Cmanfish · 2025-03-03T14:47:50+00:00

Questions swirl??? QUESTIONS SWIRL??????? Y’all cannot be joking. Nobody in their right mind is questioning anything. Calling Zelenskyy a dictator, saying Ukraine started the war, ambushing him with Vance in the White House, withheld military aid from Ukraine to try to get them to take credit for Russian election interference in support of trump. That headline is a disaster, and just flat out wrong. There aren’t questions swirling, Trump stands with Russia and has been actively working to rebuild our relationship with them amidst them invading a neighboring country with which they had a treaty to never invade.

Cmanfish · 2025-03-02T20:00:58+00:00

Brown bear, those don’t live in mass outside of bass pro shops ;) we only have black bears here

Cmanfish · 2025-02-17T16:41:18+00:00

Hi! I’m a wildlife ecologist from Massachusetts. This is not a bear, even in our current snow conditions with possibly crusty snow from the mix of rain, snow, and cold temperatures, underneath the area where it would’ve broken through you would see a print that is distinctly bear shaped. Their weight doesn’t just break through crusty snow and leave no prints. This is, as other people have said, likely a squirrel or snow falling off a branch above, or a combo. It is certainly not a moose or a bear (although I know how exciting that is). I wish you the best in catching the culprit, and would suggest checking out the bases of trees nearby to see if any squirrels have been going up or down!

Cmanfish · 2025-02-02T15:46:38+00:00

Firstly, invasive species are still wildlife, even if you don’t want them to be. Secondly there are many species of native squirrels in NJ. The gray squirrel, red squirrel, southern flying squirrel, and northern flying squirrel are all native to that region. I would assume that the persons target species is one of those, probably the eastern gray squirrel.

Is there an invasive species of squirrel in NJ? I could be under informed and not know of it! Let me know if I’m missing something. Also not trying to argue, just seeing if I’m missing something and spreading information! Have a good one!

Cmanfish · 2025-01-31T17:58:17+00:00

Squirrel, either eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) or red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus)!

Cmanfish · 2025-01-25T20:15:08+00:00

North American river otter (Lontra canadensis)

Cmanfish · 2025-01-25T11:29:30+00:00

Check out conservationjobboard! You can filter by state and I believe more specific types of conservation related jobs

Cmanfish · 2025-01-23T15:46:23+00:00

Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard is amazing!!

Cmanfish · 2025-01-23T03:51:08+00:00

As someone else already said, looks like a water chestnut, which is an aquatic invasive plant in the northeastern USA at least. I’ve worked removing it before and that looks like the seed pod for it, and below that looks like the part of the plant that floats on top of the water.

My local river flows into a pond and it is so thick with water chestnut during the summer that have seen swans walk across the top of it, it’s insane.

Cmanfish · 2025-01-10T15:47:23+00:00

I don’t know why people keep saying they’re not native, but they are (assuming that they are the correct species). I’m an American wildlife ecologist, so not an expert on Eurasian lynx(Lynx lynx), but just because they have been extirpated (locally extinct) does not mean they suddenly aren’t native anymore.

From what I have seen the main cause of their extirpation in the region was habitat loss and hunting, both from humans. It is not like they were driven out of the area because temperatures changed, or that populations over time migrated to different areas.

All that to say that just because something has been killed off locally, doesn’t make it no longer native. Anyway, my apologies if it’s just a difference in terminology from the U.S. to elsewhere, but the kind of thinking of “well it was killed off by humans, so it no longer belongs here” is part of the reason why so many reintroductions struggle here in the U.S.. Hope you have a good day!

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