"We must keep the animals on Earth, for they know everything: how to keep warm, predict the storms, live in darkness or blazing sun, how to navigate the skies, to organize societies, how to make chemicals and fireproof skins. The animals know the Earth as we do not." -Jean Craighead George, The Talking Earth

Animal tracking is an ancient human skill that has been teaching people about their environment for thousands of years. If we look back far enough in human history, before scientific knowledge was written, traditional trackers were using a sophisticated science of observation to get close to wildlife and educate their children about nature.

At it’s core, animal tracking depends on having a deep understanding of precisely how and why everything in nature is intimately interconnected.

To really learn tracking at the deepest level, we need to have a complete understanding of how nature works as a system that includes plants, trees, birds, frogs, insects & energy cycles through time & space.

Using this complete ecological knowledge, trackers can get close to animals not just by following trails and direct evidence, but by anticipating animal behavior in it’s complete environmental context.

To the untrained eye, this level of tracking skill can appear almost like magic, but it really just comes down to practical sensory training that can be learned & passed down through mentoring.

Strictly speaking – A track is the impression of an animals foot after it walks in any soft substrate like sand, mud, silt or snow.

In the same way your own foot has a heel, an arch, and toes that leave observable tracks and identify as human, all animals have uniquely identifiable tracks that match their species.

Being able to identify the different types of tracks is one of the first steps towards becoming a competent tracker.

As we study the tracks of different animals, we learn to observe and identify the key characteristics like toes, claws, symmetry, size, and negative space between the soft pads of mammals.

A key principle in tracking is that animals move in patterned ways across the landscape that reflect consistent habits & behavior cycles through all four seasons.

The more you know about these behaviors and tendencies, the more easily you can predict where animals are going without necessarily having a lot of tracks to show you the way.

Every track tells a story, and the only limitation is our own awareness for reading those stories.

Examine the track pattern.

The next step is to look at where the footprints fall and try to identify a pattern. You can determine an animal's gait by interpreting the track pattern. Since different animal families have different gaits, examining the track pattern can help you figure out what type of animal tracks you're seeing. You can also use the track pattern to predict where the animal may have gone. Here are the most common track patterns:

• Diagonal walker pattern. Diagonal walkers, including felines, canines, and hoofed animals, lift the front and hind legs on opposite sides at the same time. They leave behind staggered tracks. Imagine the way a horse walks or trots and the prints he leaves behind.

• Pacer pattern. Wide-bodied animals like bears, beavers, opossums and raccoons lift the front and hind legs on the same side of the body at the same time.

• Bounder pattern. Weasels, ferrets and badgers hop so that their front feet land first and their back feet land next. The prints from their back feet will usually be just behind their front prints.

• Galloper pattern. Rabbits and hares gallop when they move. They jump so that their front feet land first and their back feet land in front and to the side of where the front feet landed. Since they have long back feet, their prints tend to look like a "U."

• Hoppers vs. walkers. Bird track patterns tend to fall into two categories: hoppers and walkers. Birds that hop have prints that land adjacent to each other. Birds that walk have offset prints, like those a human makes. Note that hopping birds generally live and feed in trees or in the air, and walking birds generally live closer to the ground and feed on ground-dwelling insects or animals.

Look for animal highways.

Animal highways, or trails, are natural paths found in forests, meadows and other natural environments that are used by many different creatures to get from one spot to another. They look a bit like dirt hiking trails used by humans, except they're usually narrower and less obvious unless you know what you're looking for.^[3]

• Animal runs are paths that connect the trails to the places where they find food, water and cover. Runs are smaller than trails and usually used by just one or two different species.

• Look for animal beds, too - places where animals sleep and rest. It may look like a nest, or burrow, with bits of fur and broken foliage.

• These places are usually not close to areas developed by humans. Check in areas where forests meet fields and meadows - areas where one type of terrain transitions to another. These are the best spots for animals to find food, water and shelter.

Look for for disturbed areas.

Animals leave behind clues - "signs" - that belie their presence. Look for bare spots on trees where the bark was rubbed off, broken grass and shrubs, chewed plants, and so on. Each animal has its own unique sign to interpret.

• Pay attention to smells you encounter, too. Skunks and other members of the weasel family usually leave behind a particular odor.

• Eventually you'll learn the differences between the bite marks left by different animals. For example, deer rip grass out of the ground, while felines nibble it.

• Look carefully for animal scat, or droppings. First, there are big differences in the shape, size and color of different animals' scat. Second, you can tell more about the animal by examining the scat to see what it has been eating.

Check the age of animal signs.

If you want to know if an animal is still nearby, you'll need to check the age of the prints and sign. It's difficult to determine exactly when an animal was present, but if you look carefully you'll be able to tell whether a print or sign was left the same day, or many days or weeks ago.

• Determine the age of prints by pressing your hand into the ground next to the print. Take a look at the difference. Fresh prints will still have sharp edges around the diameter, while prints that are a few days old will be rounded off. The weather and climate will also have an effect on how long the print stays visible.

• Examine chewed and scratched plants. If they were freshly chewed, you might still see moisture there. Leftovers from an older meal might have dried out a little and turned brown around the edges.

Track in early morning or late afternoon or early evening.

Animal tracks are more visible at these times of day, when the slant of the light makes it easier to see the shadows made by tracks. Tracking when the sun is high in the sky is a lot harder. In addition, many animals are more active in the morning and evening than they are in the middle of the day.

1. • Getting close to the ground and looking at the tracks sideways can also help you see the tiny indents and ridges that indicate an animal walked over a certain spot.

   • Start where you can clearly see tracks. The easiest way to start tracking an animal is to begin in a spot where you see undeniable tracks, like in freshly fallen snow or in a muddy spot. From there, you can follow the tracks to areas where they're not quite as easy to detect.

Animal tracking helps us make better decisions for wildlife conservation essential to maintaining the long term biodiversity of our planet.

This is important because modern decision-makers very often don’t have all the facts when they decide to develop areas of land.

With the unique observation skills of a tracker, it’s possible to design resource management strategies that work in harmony with nature, rather than against it.

Tracking also has implications that support cultural preservation of indigenous knowledge.