The Next Step. Dedicated to those who strive to preserve.

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2 Dedicated to those who strive to preserve. ii

3 Interpreting Animal Tracks, Trails and Sign by David Brown The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company Newark, Ohio iii

4 The McDonald &Woodward Publishing Company Newark, Ohio Interpreting Animal Tracks, Trails and Sign Text and figures 1998, 2012, 2013, 2015 by David W. Brown All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America by McNaughton & Gunn, Inc., Saline, Michigan, on paper that meets the minimum requirements of permanence for printed library materials. First printing October Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, David, The next step : interpreting animal tracks, trails, and sign / by David Brown. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN (perfect bound : alk. paper) 1. Animal tracks North America. 2. Tracking and trailing North America. I. Title. QL768.B dc Reproduction or translation of any part of this work, except for short excerpts used in reviews, without the written permission of the copyright holder is unlawful. Requests for permission to reproduce parts of this work, or for additional information, should be addressed to the publisher. iv

5 Contents Preface Chapter I. Introduction to 3 The Difficulties and the Rewards 3; Eco-tracking 7; Organization of the Book 9; An Engagement 12 Chapter II. The Inner Game 19 Perception: Looking and Seeing 19; Perception: Looking 20; Perception: Feet and Tracks 38; Perception: Seeing 44 Chapter III. The Outer Game 63 Contexts 63; Habitats for Tracking 79 Chapter IV. Patterns and Gaits 101 Trailing 101; Terms 104; Space, Time and Energy 108; Imagining 110; Categories of Gaits 110; Aligned Gaits and Their Patterns 112; Displaced Gaits and Their Patterns 113; Transverse and Rotary Patterns 114; Direct Registration and the Walking Gait 116; Verticality 122; High-energy Patterns and Gaits 127; Bipedality and Quadrupedality 127; Lope versus Gallop 128; Bounding 139; The Raccoon Catastrophe 147 Chapter V. Putting It Together 151 How Predation Works 151; Anthropomorphism 161; Unlearning a Few Rules 162; Interpreting Some Trails 166 Chapter VI. Species Notes 185 Sign 185; Species Notes: Black Bear 199; Species Notes: Beaver 218; Species Notes: Bobcat 235; Species Notes: Porcupine 269; Species Notes: Fisher 280; Species Notes: Eastern Coyote 297; Species Notes: Red Fox 309; Species Notes: vii v

6 Gray Fox 320; Species Notes: White-tailed Deer 338; Species Notes: Moose 357; Species Notes: Otter, Mink and Other Weasels 363; Species Notes: Hawk and Owl Sign 376; Species Notes: The Great Foolers 385; Species Notes: Cougar 390 Chapter VII. Applications 397 Tracking Tips 397; Tracking Problems 429; Mountain Lions 449 Endpiece. What Does the Fox See? 467 Fox Wisdom 468 Glossary 475 Appendix A. Solutions to the Tracking Problems 483 Appendix B. Preparations 499 Tracking Tools 500; Recording Information: Data Cards 516; How to Stay Warm Outdoors in the Winter 523; Finding Your Way 542; Emergency Shelter 547 Bibliography 551 Index 553 vi

7 Preface Preface When I was a boy there were only a few books on animal tracking available, and most were of questionable value. Really, the only one that provided at all accurate information was the classic work of Olaus Murie, produced in the early part of the 20 th Century. Not only was Murie a scientist and, as such, unwilling to invent what he had not actually seen, he also had the opportunity to roam the West before so much of it got transformed by the aggressive exploitation of its natural resources. I think many trackers today wish they had been able to lead Murie s life at the time he did and been able to experience the places that, as a biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service, he got to visit. Off-hand references to his many adventures, such as dog-sledding down the Yukon River when that was the only way to traverse it in the winter, fire the imagination of the latter-day naturalist. It seems that few nature writers up to Murie s time had taken the accurate depiction of animal tracks and sign as a serious subject and so presented to the public what sometimes were fanciful and bizarrely inaccurate images and related information. Since Murie, others, intent on original work of their own, may have lacked his eye for significant detail as well as for perceiving fundamental shape. The result has been that, until recently, the literature available to the reader has presented a hodge-podge of images that mix the accurate with the fantastical. Today the availability of reliable tracking information is much better. Trackers like Rezendes and Elbroch, picking up the thread of Murie s dedication to accuracy, have produced much improved modern guides to track identification. I like to think that I am part of this new age, as well, with my own Trackards for North American Mammals and The Companion Guide to Trackards for North American Mammals, which I self-produced in small quantities for many years and which have recently been published by McDonald and Woodward. vii

8 With these resources, Rezendes and Elbroch on the desk and mine in the field, it should be possible today for a tracker of any experience to identify much of what he or she finds in the woods, fields and swamps that they roam, better informed than ever before. I have always wanted to discover secrets, whether the secrets are hidden in a code or hidden in the symbols of a foreign language or hidden in the night or behind foliage. This ultimately has been the motivation for my study of animal tracking. The Nature that surrounds us teems with invisible life, living by its own rules and following its own roadmap that only occasionally coincides with our own. Finding several whitened droppings on the forest floor and then tracking them to an inconspicuous nest in a pine where a female goshawk incubates her eggs is a thrill for me, not because I have never seen a goshawk before but because I have discovered, hidden in a pine tree, a secret of Nature that I was not supposed to find. Thus it is not the sign itself that is as exciting as the interpretation of it in order to find the nest. One should not, I think, aim at the finish line in one s study of animal tracking, that is, at the point where you hope to be able to say, There, I ve learned it all. But, like learning a language, one should look at the process as a pleasurable, life-long pursuit. If gaining insight into the lives of wild animals had a finite end, I expect that after all these years I would be bored with it. Instead, I cheer myself with the fact that I know I will never know it all, never get to the end of it. Rather than feeling frustrated at the prospect of an endless journey, I can expect the surprises and delights of discovery to go on as long as I am alive and able to see or, at least, think about what I have seen. This book, then, is intended to encourage the next step to the many who have persisted through the confusions caused by the initial and necessary oversimplifications of an art and feel ready to begin interpreting what they have already learned to identify. Although the difficulties are many, the rewards of insight into a hidden world of life are generous compensation. I hope and trust that in progressing into the subtleties and complexities presented in this book, paradoxically some of the initial confusion will clear. This is the promise of persistence in this difficult and rewarding pursuit. I will not pretend to complete or perfect expertness on the subject of animal track interpretation. All I can hope is that some information contained in this book, gained from my experiences over several viii

9 Preface decades, will be helpful to the reader. And all I can promise is that the information is honestly arrived at. Despite efforts to explain as lucidly as I can, no doubt some parts of this guide will seem confusing, especially to the less-experienced tracker. Mixing field experience with reading is the best way to reduce this confusion, using one to lever up the other in the climb to competence. All of us who are engaged in rediscovering the lost art of animal tracking are somewhere on that climbing road. No one knows all of it and hopefully never will; the journey, as is often said, is much more satisfying than the arrival. Ultimately, the hope is that along the way we will gain valuable insights not only into the hidden lives of wild animals but also into that larger life upon which our own species depends, despite the civilized artifice behind which we hide from its realities. The art of animal tracking is a work in progress. Lost to us is most of the information, little or none of it written down, passed by oral tradition from father to son in aboriginal societies in North America. We are, in Rezendes phrase, relearning an ancient art or perhaps reinventing it, since the original largely has been lost. But we are obliged to reinvent it with modern Western minds, selected for traits other than those of the ancient native hunter. Taking the next step in the art of animal tracking has many rewards as well as many difficulties. It seems most things in life that give us abiding satisfaction must have both. This book is intended to provide a hint of the former, pointing developing trackers in what I hope is the right direction and then setting them loose on their own personal journey of discovery. It also guides the trackers through some of the difficulties in mastering the tracking art, helping him or her to overcome obstacles to clear reconstructions of natural events encountered in the field. To those, I extend my very best wishes for as many happy and exciting days as I have been fortunate to have in my nearly three decades of applying myself to that art. Acknowledgements I wish to thank my friend, Joseph Choiniere, for his invaluable help in editing the original draft of the manuscript for this book. He is the best general naturalist I know and has served here to keep me out of trouble with the peripheral facts. He has also been a frequent companion on tracking excursions in central Massachusetts where ix

10 his insights as a life-long naturalist have always added richness to these walks. Donna Nothe-Choiniere has also been a dear friend over many years. Her enthusiasm for Nature, not to mention her way around a roast, has been a great support during doubtful times. Since the mid-1980s my friend Kevin Harding has been a frequent companion on many tracking excursions in New England and Arizona. Whether paddling along the muddy banks of the Megalloway or trudging the snowy Quabbin woods, his independent insights have been a great help in refining my own as they appear in this book. During those years I have had the privilege of being a frequent guest in his and his wife, Rita s, various homes in Massachusetts, Maine and Arizona from which many tracking adventures have emanated. Emerging from mosquito-infested bogs to a shower and one of Rita s excellent dinners has been a continually restoring experience. In two decades of presenting tracking and other wildlife programs I have had the honor of meeting hundreds of eager trackers whose enthusiasm has buoyed my own. Their questions and observations have been invaluable in helping me entertain perspectives different from my own. Their questions and observations have led to insights into better ways of explaining what are often complex processes of identification and interpretation of tracks, trails and other sign. I am indebted to them for their questions and perceptual insights. Tracker and photographer Paul Rezendes provided early guidance way back in the 1980s and early 90s. He was the first person I had ever met who had the competence to confirm or deny authoritatively my intuitions about tracks and sign. I might never have gotten started on this long journey of discovery without his help. While I have not quoted other authors in this book directly, their collective knowledge contained in the bibliography has contributed greatly to what I have written here. No one starts from scratch in any art, and I have the advantage of an awareness of their past works in producing this new one. I am greatly indebted to these authors who have gone before and shown the way. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Jerry McDonald, of McDonald and Woodward Publishing Company, for taking on the risk of publishing not only this book but also Trackards for North American Mammals and The Companion Guide to Trackards for North American Mammals. His editorial insights have gone a long way to improving x

11 Preface the quality of all these projects beyond the rough original manuscripts. Thanks as well to Trish Newcomb, also of McDonald and Woodward, for her marketing efforts in bringing these projects into public view. I hope the future for these books will reward their confidence and efforts. xi

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