Tracking and StalkingBy Karen Berger A field guide and magnifying glass can help you identify animal tracks in the wild or the critters running through your campsite. Observing wildlife is a memorable part of any outdoors excursion, and spring is a good time to do it. As winter melts away, animals become more active, looking for mates and food. The ground, still covered with snow in northern areas, or wet from snowmelt and spring rains in warmer climes, is perfect for discovering animal tracks. Tracking 101 To identify these tracks, you should recognize both fore prints and hind prints. Tracks that look similar on first glance might be differentiated by their size. Other identity clues are claw length and shape, track width, and the straddle (the distance at the shoulder, indicated on the ground as the distance between the right and left tracks). Expert trackers categorize animals by how they move. In her guide, Mammal Tracks and Scat: Life-size Tracking Guide (www.heartwoodpress.com), forester Lynn Levine explains that a rabbit is a hopper, a cat or a dog is a walker or trotter, a bear is a waddler, and a weasel is a bounder. Each leaves different types of tracks. For example, as a rabbit hops, its long back legs pass its front legs, so the hind-foot tracks are actually in front of the forefoot tracks. Understanding gaits helps identify tracks when the track itself is incomplete or hard to see.
On another occasion, she followed bobcat tracks that were 10 feet apart, indicating that the animal was moving fast and hunting. “I followed the tracks from deer bed to deer bed,” she recalls. Similarly, the gait can help you decide if the tracks belong to a pet dog or a wild coyote. “The tracks are similar,” Levine says, “But well-fed pets meander, so their tracks are close together and circular. Wild animals are more often hunting. Their tracks are in a straight line, and farther apart; you can see the intent.”
In addition to footprints, look for these telltale signs:
Scat, or droppings, identifies herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Take a stick and poke at the contents to see what they’ve been eating: husks of seeds, berry skins, or grasses (herbivore); bones, fur, and feathers (carnivore); or a mixture (omnivore). Stalking Getting close enough to watch animals in their natural habitat is a real thrill. But your first priority should be safety:
Tools for learning Binoculars are rated by two numbers, magnification and lens size. For wildlife viewing, 7 x 35 to 8 x 42 is a good choice. Bigger lenses are more difficult to keep steady. For outdoor use, compact binoculars are easier to carry; waterproof ones are a must. Cameras: A zoom lens can turn a so-so picture into a great one. You can also use a macro lens to photograph tracks up close. “Make sure that you have something to indicate the track’s exact size, including a ruler, a coin, or even a finger in the picture to add scale,” says Levine. “Track size is an important part of identification.” Using plaster molds of tracks is a good way to study and learn to recognize tracks. But Levine cautions that “making casts in the wild is difficult because conditions are rarely perfect.” She recommends using molds available from Acorn Naturalists (www.acornnaturalists.com) to create casts of animal feet, which can then be used to make sample tracks. Journaling and drawing: We remember what we concentrate on. Writing up your experiences and sketching them will help lock them in your memory. That’s the way Sir Robert Baden-Powell did it. The founder of Scouting was a premier tracker who spent countless hours sketching his wilderness impressions. Karen Berger is the author of Backpacking and Hiking (BSA No. 34354, $20). Visit her Web site at www.hikerwriter.com.
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