One-Day Track and Sign Certification with BEAT and a TCNA Evaluator

08:03AM / Thursday, October 24, 2024Print Story | Email Story

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) is offering a One-Day Track and Sign Certification led by Daniel Hansche, an evaluator with Tracker Certification North America and the founder of Spur Wander, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, at the Washington Marsh in October Mountain State Forest.

Learn how to recognize tracks of mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates on your landscape and interpret animal movement and behavior. This explorative practice reveals a hidden world of wildlife sign and develops the ability to find subtle evidence of animal presence. In short, this skill set facilitates knowledge on a remarkable variety of life in an ecosystem.

Tracker Certification North America (TCNA) educates trackers of all skill levels and, through the CyberTracker Conservation Certification process, ensures reliable observations from professionals and community scientists alike. Using these skills to measure landscape health, CyberTracker Conservation’s mission is to create a worldwide environmental monitoring network.

This one-day evaluation offered by BEAT will provide an excellent springboard to practice and apply fundamental tracking skills. It will also give participants an opportunity to get certified as a Level 1 Tracker with TCNA.

Space is limited, and registration is required. There is also a limited amount of financial aid available. Learn more at www.thebeatnews.org/BeatTeam/event/one-day-track-sign-cybertracker-evaluation/.

This educational program is offered by Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Pittsfield. Learn more about BEAT's programs and what they do at www.thebeatnews.org.

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Karen Allen on Harrison Ford, John Belushi, Steven Spielberg and Williamstown

By Alan PetrucelliSpecial to iBerkshires
12:42PM / Saturday, August 08, 2026

Karen Allen operates her fiber arts and clothing store in Great Barrington when she's not making movies or performing in plays. Below, Allen with Harrison Ford during the shooting of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' She's appeared in three of the five Raiders movies.

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — Karen Allen wants to talk about the time she went blind.

It was 1979, a year after the release of her first major film, "National Lampoon's Animal House." She and a group of the movie's alum got together on a Sunday afternoon and threw a party, "to play music, hang out and sing." A day later, "the painful symptoms" began. Allen learned that she had contracted keratoconjunctivitis, a dangerous and rare eye disease that created "terrible, terrible, terrible pain. It caused me to go blind for a while ... my eye muscles started to deteriorate. I had to stay in my apartment to make sure — God forbid! — I didn't give it to anyone. It took about two months for me to recover."

That was then. Today, 47 years after the sightless saga, Allen can see clearly. And the choices she had made in her 50-plus year career remain sharply in focus: "The Wanderers," "Cruising," Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Shoot the Moon," "Starman," "Scrooged" — the list is longer than her bit role in Woody Allen's "Manhattan".

And that is just her film work. (Ironically, Allen played a 20-year-old Helen Keller in "Monday After the Miracle," the sequel to "The Miracle Worker." The 1982 drama flopped and played only 16 performances, marking Allen's only Broadway performance.)

This season, Allen returned to the Berkshire Theatre Group's Unicorn Theatre in Abi Morgan's "LoveSong," a play about how love changes people over time. Allen fell in love with the work when she saw it on closing night in Ireland last summer. She sent the script to BTG's Artistic Director and CEO Kate Maguire who "loved it" and green-lighted the project.

"LoveSong" runs through Aug. 29. For tickets or more information, call 413-997-4444 or visit BerkshireTheatreGroup.org.

Next up for Allen: The October release of the film "Other Mommy," "a psychological horror film."

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