| David Brown's Wildlife Services 12 Hotel Road Warwick, MA 01378 Tel 978 544 8175 E-mail: info@dbwildlife.com |
| Resources and Reviews |
The quality of information found in various tracking resources is very uneven. Some problems
arise from honest mistakes; tracking is, after all, an evolving art and no one at this point knows
everything there is to know. Other problems are more culpable, however. Some writers rely on
previous written sources of dubious reliability or, worse, on their own imagination as they fill
gaps in their knowledge from thin air, relying cynically on the naivete of their audience to cover
their tracks, so to speak. As a result I tend to be conservative about making recommendations
for learning resources. Here are a few that I can recommend in whole or in part.
arise from honest mistakes; tracking is, after all, an evolving art and no one at this point knows
everything there is to know. Other problems are more culpable, however. Some writers rely on
previous written sources of dubious reliability or, worse, on their own imagination as they fill
gaps in their knowledge from thin air, relying cynically on the naivete of their audience to cover
their tracks, so to speak. As a result I tend to be conservative about making recommendations
for learning resources. Here are a few that I can recommend in whole or in part.
Tracking Books:
Rezendes, Paul: Tracking and the Art of Seeing. Harper Collins. This book relies on Paul's
beautiful photographs of both tracks and sign as well as habitats and the animals themselves.
Rezendes was a latter-day pioneer in rediscovering the nearly lost art of animal tracking in North
America. The book is most helpful with the eastern species that he knew best.
Elbroch, Mark: Mammal Tracks and Sign, Bird Tracks and Sign, Animal Skulls. Stackpole
Three books are currently on the market. Mark's scholarship is impressive, even though he was
not well served by the editors at Stackpole at least in the textual parts of his books. As desktop
references for detailed information about tracks and sign as well as skulls they are the best
things out there and have vaulted Elbroch into leadership on the American tracking scene.
Murie, Olaus: A Field Guide to Animal Tracks. Houghton Mifflin. Murie got to see the
American West before it was largely spoiled by the blight of civilization. His painstaking
drawings of the tracks and scat he encountered on his journeys inspired and provided a start for
many current North American trackers. These drawings depended on his individual perspective
which did not always capture the essence of his subject, and rarely he made mistakes. But the
few mistakes were honest ones, unlike those of subsequent "trackers" who plagiarized those
errors into their own works with telling accuracy. An enduring book by a pioneer in tracking who
led the right life, a life that has inspired many, including me
Stokes, Donald and Lillian: A Guide to Animal Tracking and Behavior. Little Brown. Skip
the track renditions which are either too crude to be helpful or derivative from elsewhere.
However, the life history information can be very helpful for a quick check on gestation periods,
pup emergence and so forth. This information is as good as it sources, generally scientific
journals which the Stokeses have done the great service of translating from scientific jargon into
reasonably colorful Anglo-saxon for the rest of us.
Halfpenny, Jim: Mammal Tracking in North America, Johnson Books. Once again skip the
crude track renditions and go to the information on patterns and gaits. These provide a good
introduction to this esoteric subject, Be aware that some of the frame sequences of gaits seem
to be out of order, presenting a mammal moving in anatomically impossible ways.
Burt and Grossenheider: A Field Guide to Mammals of America North of Mexico. Houghton
Mifflin. This book is somewhat dated now as far as both range maps and attitude. Professor
Burt was from a former era where there were good animals and bad animals, the bad ones
being any that interfered with human ambitions. However, the paintings by Grossenheider are
exquisite and the book itself is a good quick reference for such things as body length and
weight, number of mammae, etc. Unfortunately the track renditions are mostly mythical and the
skull photos in the back are too dark to reveal the kind of detail they should.
Rezendes, Paul: Tracking and the Art of Seeing. Harper Collins. This book relies on Paul's
beautiful photographs of both tracks and sign as well as habitats and the animals themselves.
Rezendes was a latter-day pioneer in rediscovering the nearly lost art of animal tracking in North
America. The book is most helpful with the eastern species that he knew best.
Elbroch, Mark: Mammal Tracks and Sign, Bird Tracks and Sign, Animal Skulls. Stackpole
Three books are currently on the market. Mark's scholarship is impressive, even though he was
not well served by the editors at Stackpole at least in the textual parts of his books. As desktop
references for detailed information about tracks and sign as well as skulls they are the best
things out there and have vaulted Elbroch into leadership on the American tracking scene.
Murie, Olaus: A Field Guide to Animal Tracks. Houghton Mifflin. Murie got to see the
American West before it was largely spoiled by the blight of civilization. His painstaking
drawings of the tracks and scat he encountered on his journeys inspired and provided a start for
many current North American trackers. These drawings depended on his individual perspective
which did not always capture the essence of his subject, and rarely he made mistakes. But the
few mistakes were honest ones, unlike those of subsequent "trackers" who plagiarized those
errors into their own works with telling accuracy. An enduring book by a pioneer in tracking who
led the right life, a life that has inspired many, including me
Stokes, Donald and Lillian: A Guide to Animal Tracking and Behavior. Little Brown. Skip
the track renditions which are either too crude to be helpful or derivative from elsewhere.
However, the life history information can be very helpful for a quick check on gestation periods,
pup emergence and so forth. This information is as good as it sources, generally scientific
journals which the Stokeses have done the great service of translating from scientific jargon into
reasonably colorful Anglo-saxon for the rest of us.
Halfpenny, Jim: Mammal Tracking in North America, Johnson Books. Once again skip the
crude track renditions and go to the information on patterns and gaits. These provide a good
introduction to this esoteric subject, Be aware that some of the frame sequences of gaits seem
to be out of order, presenting a mammal moving in anatomically impossible ways.
Burt and Grossenheider: A Field Guide to Mammals of America North of Mexico. Houghton
Mifflin. This book is somewhat dated now as far as both range maps and attitude. Professor
Burt was from a former era where there were good animals and bad animals, the bad ones
being any that interfered with human ambitions. However, the paintings by Grossenheider are
exquisite and the book itself is a good quick reference for such things as body length and
weight, number of mammae, etc. Unfortunately the track renditions are mostly mythical and the
skull photos in the back are too dark to reveal the kind of detail they should.
Tracking Websites:
Keeping Track. www.keepingtrack.org. Sue Morse's site. Her organization seeks to train and
organize laymen to "keep track" of wildlife activity near their homes in order to inform local public
policy. Many chapters exist throughout the Northeast.
Wildlife Tracking in North America. www.wildlifetrackers.com. Mark Elbroch's site. His
organizatiuon seeks to credential trackers to standards of expertise, relying on a testing method
developed in South Africa.
International Society of Professional Trackers. www.ispt.org. Appears to be a no-nonsense
organization that emphasizes tracking techniques and expertise from South Africa. The links
page provides some interesting sites.
Virtual Dirt Time. www.dirttime.ws. Interesting track identification puzzles and explications.
Main Primitive Skills School. www.primitiveskills.com. Not primarily a tracking website, but
the links page presents a long list of pertinent websites.
organize laymen to "keep track" of wildlife activity near their homes in order to inform local public
policy. Many chapters exist throughout the Northeast.
Wildlife Tracking in North America. www.wildlifetrackers.com. Mark Elbroch's site. His
organizatiuon seeks to credential trackers to standards of expertise, relying on a testing method
developed in South Africa.
International Society of Professional Trackers. www.ispt.org. Appears to be a no-nonsense
organization that emphasizes tracking techniques and expertise from South Africa. The links
page provides some interesting sites.
Virtual Dirt Time. www.dirttime.ws. Interesting track identification puzzles and explications.
Main Primitive Skills School. www.primitiveskills.com. Not primarily a tracking website, but
the links page presents a long list of pertinent websites.
Solution to the tracking problem on the Encounters page:
Four animals left their tracks in this patch of wet sand on the shore of a reservoir, two mammals
and two birds.
In the upper left are two tracks of a passerine or "perching" bird. Note the asymmetrical
arrangement of the toes and the long imprint of the trailing toe. By size and habitat this almost
certainly is the trail of a common crow, a species that frequents shorelines looking for scavenge.
Also in the upper left as well as at right are the imprints of a small sandpiper. Note the month,
September, when numbers of these birds migrate from their nesting grounds in northern Canada to
the tropics, passing along the coast and inland waters. By size this is probably a least sandpiper.
A river otter passed through the frame on its way to the water from lower left to upper right,
leaving a clear set of bounding prints in the right center of the frame. Look carefully for the
impressions of phalangial grooves between the toe and secondary pads.
In the lower left of the frame a porcupine has left several prints, two hind and one front. Note the
arc of nail marks ahead of the plantigrade foot pad with no toe marks in between--a reliable
identifying mark for this mammal regardless of the indistinctness of the prints.
and two birds.
In the upper left are two tracks of a passerine or "perching" bird. Note the asymmetrical
arrangement of the toes and the long imprint of the trailing toe. By size and habitat this almost
certainly is the trail of a common crow, a species that frequents shorelines looking for scavenge.
Also in the upper left as well as at right are the imprints of a small sandpiper. Note the month,
September, when numbers of these birds migrate from their nesting grounds in northern Canada to
the tropics, passing along the coast and inland waters. By size this is probably a least sandpiper.
A river otter passed through the frame on its way to the water from lower left to upper right,
leaving a clear set of bounding prints in the right center of the frame. Look carefully for the
impressions of phalangial grooves between the toe and secondary pads.
In the lower left of the frame a porcupine has left several prints, two hind and one front. Note the
arc of nail marks ahead of the plantigrade foot pad with no toe marks in between--a reliable
identifying mark for this mammal regardless of the indistinctness of the prints.