Danby, VT—Smokey House Center is excited to announce the launch of its Community Science program with a public kick-off event on Thursday, June 25 at 5:30pm on the main campus in Danby, Vermont. The evening will feature a special visit from The Caterpillar Lab—the New Hampshire-based organization known for their work studying, raising, and sharing the extraordinary world of native catperillars—for a guided caterpillar count on the land. 

The event is free and open to all ages. 

The partnership with The Caterpillar Lab grew organically out of the Smokey House Center community. After Smokey House Center hosted a screening of the documentary The Extraordinary Caterpillar, attendees were so captivated that they asked whether the people behind the film could come to Smokey House in person. The conversation led directly to this event—and to a new chapter in how Smokey House Center engages the community in science of this place.

“We want people to feel like they have a role in understanding and caring for this landscape,” said Walker Cammack, Smokey House Center Program Director. “The caterpillar count is the perfect starting point, it’s accessible, it’s surprising, and it opens people’s eyes to just how much is happening right here in our valley.”

Caterpillars are far more than the larval stage of butterflies and moths, they are a critical link in the food web. Research from Vermont Center for Ecostudies has found that caterpillars are essential to the survival of eastern bluebirds and many other insectivorous birds, which depend on the soft-bodied insects to feed their young during nesting season. Monitoring caterpillar populations helps researchers and land managers understand the health of the broader ecosystem. 

Every attendee at the June 25 kick-off will receive a Smokey House Center Community Science Passport, a custom booklet designed in collaboration with a Burr and Burton graduate, now Middlebury College student and artist, Willa Bryant. Each community science event at Smokey House Center will offer an opportunity to earn a new stamp, and stamps add up to Smokey House Center merch and special experience on the land. 

The caterpillar count is just the beginning. Smokey House Center’s Community Science program includes a growing calendar of monitoring and data-collection events across the landscape, including:

• Bat Monitoring – tracking bat activity on a mobile acoustic route with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife through their North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat)
• Snake Counts with Herpetologist Luke Groff – hands-on monitoring and counting of snake populations at snake research spots
• Bird Recording Data Retrieval – collecting acoustic data from recording stations placed throughout the forest

Together, these projects will generate real data about wildlife and ecosystem of Smokey House Center 5,000 acres, data that will inform land management, support regional research, and deepen the community’s connection to this working landscape. 

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About Smokey House Center: Smokey House Center is an innovative, place-based nonprofit designed to address the urgent need for viable agricultural and forestry practices that support food systems and local communities while fostering ecological health and resilience and community engagement. Through applied research conducted on its expansive 5,000-acre property, Smokey House aims to create and refine climate-adaptive practices that can be replicated in other regions, contributing to a global dialogue on how to best steward the land in a way that is equitable, viable and just. At the forefront of this work is involving young people in every part of the process, providing them with meaningful, hands-on experiential learning opportunities.