Tracking Animals for Fun, Photography and the Hunt

It All Comes Back To Tracking

“If you can find it, you don’t have to make it.” I always tell that to my survival students: tracking things (being aware of where things are) is the most important skill. In addition to being nearly the most important survival skill, tracking is exciting – it’s like solving a mystery. With investigation, you can discover an entire story about what happened in nature, sometimes what took place a long time before you ever arrived.

The next time you’re in the field, see if you can spot sign of an animal – not the animal itself, but evidence it left behind, such as a track, or a scratch, or browsing marks on vegetation. At first, don’t try to identify who left the sign – just describe what you are literally seeing before your eyes in that very moment.

Jumping ahead to a conclusion about the identity of the track’s maker is unwise. As a wonderful friend and mentor of mine, Bob Lundquist, would often tell me, “Assumption is the mother of all mess-ups.” Assumptions convict the innocent. Or as my dad always said, “Believe nothing you hear, a third of what you read, and half of what you see.”

Both of them were right. Like everyone should know by now in the post 2016 era, much of the information described as news is inaccurate, contrived to color our opinions, or pure propaganda. And as I learned as part of Search & Rescue teams – and something experienced law enforcement officers know – is that if you ask any 2 people to describe the same scene, at least one of them will remember seeing something (or seeing someone do something) that video review proves otherwise. Whether in the field of criminal justice or in the literal field tracking wildlife, we must follow the hard evidence to a conclusion, i.e. eliminate all possibilities that don’t fit the evidence, rather than finding “evidence” to fit a conclusion we initially assume or want.

Tracking is a chance to be a detective, to solve a mystery, and to unravel a great story. What I’ve discovered after 30 years periodically tracking animals is to return, over and over, back to my study site, then to record my experiences, and to always compare my evidence and conclusions with science-based resources. That was nearly impossible until after the turn of this century when researchers such as Mark Elbroch, Ph.D. began to replace popular tracking myths with verifiable results.

Underlying this process of tracking like a detective is a particular approach – an attitude of curiosity, interest, sensitivity, and love for the natural world. It is in the process of investigating a tracking mystery that we gain experience. With patience, we will come upon the answers as well as find out which skills are critical to learn.

The Most Critical Skill: Awareness

Wildlife tracking is not a two-dimensional view of prints.  Rather, it is a wide awareness of all that is happening in a vicinity. Check out my article on sensory awareness skills and then do thinsg like use “wide-angle” vision the next time you walk into nature, and begin viewing the ground for tracks, scat, trails, and lays, as well as observing bark and fenceline barbs for tufts of fur, scrapes, nibbles, and other sign.  Even the littlest, most indeterminate sign of a mammal is important.

Obviously, be safe. Getting lost or injured is almost always a simple lapse in awareness. Learn about and investigate how to manage hazards. These can be subtle, or as basic as not sticking your hand in an animal den, or not approaching animals if there is a chance you may get in the way of its routine and scare it into a defense mode.  As you gain more tracking skills, you will know better and better what effect you have on the animals, and what your safety level is.

Start by Tracking Birds

It can be frustrating to track animals that you rarely see, and it can also lead to false assumptions. I recommend tracking birds first. Simply watch some at a feeding station, and then go straight in to see their tracks, scratch marks, beak pecks, scat and other sign. You’ll build good tracking habits this way, and you can also learn the language of the birds, as Tom Brown, Jr. used to say. Bird vocalizations help you find, among other surprises, animals hidden beyond your line of sight, and right off the trail you’re following.

How many times have you found feathers lying on the ground? One thing is to identify the species of bird the feather came from, but that’s just the start. Go deeper. As I learned during a tracking class with Jon Young, if you want to track how the bird lost its feather, look at the base of the feather shaft.  If you see just feather, with no evidence of other body parts nearby, and no beak-mark at the base of the shaft, then the feather might have just fallen out.  If there is a beak mark on the shaft, the bird may have plucked it out itself. Some birds even do this to line their own nests and to create a heater when incubating their young.

On the other hand, I’ve seen several raptors plucking the feathers out of their prey before consuming the meat and other tasty parts. They leave a beak mark that can very often be seen on the feather shaft, but otherwise no damage to the prey’s feathers. I’ve seen evidence of cougars and other felines that have killed birds, leaving scissor-cuts at the base of the prey’s feathers. Weasels cause similarly clean cuts on feather shafts. And I’ve seen canines just munch and slobber all over the feathers of their prey. It doesn’t take long to recognize these differences, so look at the base of a feather the next time you come across one to assess how the bird lost it. Usually you’ll see that the lost feather was the result of specific predation.

Investigate the Scat

Scat is another very important sign to investigate in nature.  You can know everything an animal ate by dissecting scat.  You can look at books such as James Halfpenny’s A Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in North America to try to identify the scat, but knowing simple things such as the fact the scat will be the same width as the animal’s anus can help you identify it right away.

Also, the placement of the scat is very important.  For instance, coyote scat can be found along main trails, whereas fox scat is often found at the cross of two trails in my experience. Wolf scat can be found at the corner entrance to an area and landmarks bordering its area.  Domestic dog scat doesn’t have much fir and bones like the wild canines have.  Domestic scat usually has cornmeal inside of it.

Delve into the Tracks

At first, ignore difficult tracks. Start with domestic dogs and cats, because if you can’t identify and thereby eliminate what those tracks look like, you’re going to constantly be guessing that dog and cat tracks are some kind of wild animal. Go somewhere you can find textbook tracks like what you see in tracking books: think where to find mud, sand or wet snow.

Bring along some colored popsicle sticks, or cut little twigs, and lay them about an inch to the outside of each track or sign you found.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see how the tracks stand out in relief once you’ve done this.

See if you can determine whether a track is a front or rear, left or right, and what the “gait” of the set is – that is, whether it is running, walking extra slow, stalking, or moving at its “harmonic gait.”  Even better, if you come back later, you will see how the tracks age over time, and become a better tracker as a result.

Based on the sign you found, take some time to relax and think what the “story” may have been there.  Your story can be limited to the very boundaries of the track or sign you found, or you can try to include all the concentric waves of effect that it probably caused. Maybe you can determine those effects based on other signs you find.

When you get home, take out your tracking field guides, and put a pen to paper.  Compare your story to the information you find in the books.  It is also very wise to sketch the tracks quickly from memory, then journal the whole experience.  It will make you a good tracker much more quickly.

Why would you look for bear sign on particular trees, at certain junctions? Remember, nature lovers can’t make any assumptions.  Until we actually see a deer take a step, then go over and look at its print, we don’t really know what a deer print looks like, even if a field guide claims to know.  I’ve read some field guides to plants, for instance, that give information which could kill you. Don’t assume that information you learn from others is true.  Investigate before claiming you know anything.

The Tracker’s 5 Questions

C to naturalist Jon Young who made a wonderful improvement to the pedagogy of wildlife tracking which he called the Five Arts of Tracking.  Simply, the arts of tracking consist of answering the five “question words:”

Question 1:  Why?  Habitat – If you studied ecology in college, this is the broad view of nature that your professor probably presented.  You would learn why an animal would be in any given area; what food, water and shelter would available; what effect people, water, weather, geology, plants, and other animals have on an area.  This kind of knowledge is critical to all the other arts of wildlife tracking, because context is key.

Question 2:  When?  Aging – When did an animal leave its sign?  To answer this question, you will need to study the substrate, such as by pushing your thumb into the soil to determine its “give.”  You will have to know how much water is in the soil, because water is what holds a track together in sand and other soft soils.  Further, if you are looking at sign like bruises on a leaf, it’s important that you know how long it takes for leaf bruises to change color.

To “age” a track, it is very helpful to know the effects of recent weather in the exact spot where the animal laid its sign.  It is rain, sun, wind, dew, frost and all sorts of other weather that affects how fast tracks deteriorate.  Aging a track is perhaps the most challenging of the five arts, so have patience with your lack of information.  In the end, you can only truly know when the track was laid if you saw the animal pass by and noted the time on your watch.

Question 3:  Where?  Trailing – Where did the animal go, and where did it come from?  This is the art that hunting guides must know, and that search and rescue trackers focus on.  They train themselves to follow the tracks of one particular species, because each species will have distinct characteristics.

To learn this art in general, I recommend mapping an area to display trails, feeding areas, bedding areas, dens, nests, scrapes, trees, plants, water and any other important markers that you can find.  Noticing different kinds of trails is of particular importance to hikers and backpackers, not only to stay aware of what kinds of animals frequent an area, but to stay on human trails rather than getting side-tracked by animal trails which are notorious for getting people lost.

Or, have you ever come to a point where a trail seems to disappear?  Next time it happens, think of it as a good thing, because that’s the place where you’ll become a tracker.  Find a stick and measure the distance between tracks you can see. Then measure the distance to where another track or sign should be, and notice any slight disturbance you see.  That’s probably your next track, and then you’ll know what “invisible” tracks look like!

Some other tricks to following tracks include looking at them from a severe angle.  In other words, get down on the ground.  Also, try to place yourself on the opposite side of a track from the source of the greatest light.  The tracks will stand out a lot better because from that direction, you will see shadows cast within the tracks.  Further, remember to use wide angle vision so that you don’t keep spooking animals without noticing.  Finally, take a lot of breaks so that your eyes don’t get worn out.

To gain these skills, you might consider hiring a certified tracker for a one day training with your friends, and then practice with your tracking partners once a month. The best trailing specialist in North America is Brian McConnell and he can guide you through a Cybertracker Trailing Evaluation which is as mcuh an excellent learning opportunity for intermediate to advanced trackers as anything else.

Question 4:  What?  Interpretation –  What was the animal doing?  To answer this question, see if you can figure out front vs. rear tracks, and/or right vs. left.  Then try sketching the gait pattern to figure out if the animal was pacing, stalking, trotting, bounding, loping, galloping etc.  Watch out for “double register” tracks, where the rear foot goes directly into the front track.  Often, there will be a succession of tracks that each look like one track, but they are really two tracks in one.

Does it seem this animal might have been eating or hunting?  Does it display domestic or wild behavior? Does it display behavior of an older adult, or young animal?  Does the animal seem to be in good shape, injured, or anxious?  By observing animals, and then by going over and looking at their tracks, you will begin to know how tracks that are left in certain patterns can tell what an animal was doing.

Question 5:  Who?  Identification – Who made the track?  Besides comparing your track measurements to those in a field guide, there are other things that can help you identify its maker.  Always remember that you are only guessing until you have eliminated through proof all possibilities save one. To learn at the fastest past, take a Cybertracker Trailing, Track & Sign Evaluation which you can learn about via blog posts by evaluator David Moskowitz who gives a great a sense of the experience along with with links to cybertracker.org for more general info on evaluations by clicking here.

Article author Chris Chisholm is founder of Wolf Camp & School of Natural Science. If you would like to practice these skills with Chris and other staff instructors, join our Spring Workshops.