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Feb 20 2017

How to Track Wild Animals

How to Track animals. Students studying animal tracks in sand dunes.
Tracking is a fun way to discover and learn a lot about animals and their behavior. The more you track animals the more you learn about them and the life they live. Learning how to track wildlife is an ancient survival skill. A skill our ancestors relied upon to live, hunt, and forage. 

How to track animals

learning how to track we discover the sign and movement of animals. Recently our Oregon students mapped out coyote, gray fox, feral cat, birds, chipmunk, mouse, and bobcat.

The discovery of wildlife is made easier through the skills of tracking.

Tracking is science and art

Tracking can be very precise. The science of animal tracking may require precise measurements to distinguish between animal tracks of the same family and specie. Art is helpful for sketching tracks and wildlife's location on the landscape.

Tools to measure tracks in the field

Tools are helpful in measuring and documenting an animal's print, stride, and trail width for identification.

  • ruler
  • tape measure
  • notebook
  • pencil & eraser
  • scotch tape (For collecting animal hair)
  • camera

Animal sign

Animals leave sign as they live and pass over the landscape. Developing recognition of an animal's presence on the landscape is our ability to learn the meaning of these terms.

  • scrapes
  • scratches
  • rubs
  • digs
  • hair
  • scat
  • trail
  • gnawing's

A bus driver and hunter

One of our new students is a bus driver and avid deer hunter from Eugene, Oregon. John had this to say about his newly developed tracking skills.

"Thank you, Mark, for a wonderful experience. I learned more about tracking in 2 days than I have in 40 plus years of hunting."  ~John H

Thanks, John H., We love to hear these types of comments from our students. Our focus is to increase our student's tracking skills, dramatically.

Survival skills

Tracking has many uses, from discovering what animals visit our yard to wildlife observation. Tracking can be a valuable tool for hunters, photographers, and nature enthusiast. As for me, I believe learning to track is one of the best survival skills a person can learn.

Learn to track wildlife

Are you ready to be a tracker? Register for our Oregon Intro and Advanced Animal Tracking.

Recommended books on learning to track animals

  • Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking by Tom Brown
  • Tracking and the Art of Seeing by Paul Rezendes

More on how to track animals.

  • Sign language - reading natures clues with Mark Wienert
  • How to Brain Tan a Squirrel

Written by Mark Wienert · Categorized: Tracking

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