How To Track Animals (or Humans)
As the temperatures rise in New England, snow melts off the half-dead grass. The days are longer now, the sun hotter. A clear signal most of us can’t ignore — the great outdoors awaits! This past winter especially, we’ve hibernated through sub-degree temperatures and faced more than one Nor’easter with bravery and stamina (I’m lying; we hated every second of it). Some of us may even need to shed “winter coats” in order to get ready to slip into a bathing suit again. Oh, the horrors of pale white skin in the mirror!
Every spring we realize we probably should’ve hit the gym once or twice during the winter to stay fit, but we had a gazillion excuses for why we couldn’t possibly leave the house. And yet, an ice cream sundae is almost impossible to pass up when you’re stuck indoors. 🙂 This is where learning how to trail an animal comes into play. What better way to exercise than to have fun while doing it?
For crime writers, remember what you’re feeling while you trail that animal through the woods, and then transfer those emotions to your killer. Humans also leave tracks of where they’ve been, what they’re doing, and where they’re headed.
Correct Terminology
Trailing
Trailing refers to the act of following an animal’s tracks across the surface of earth. Like any other skill, mastering the art of trailing takes time and patience. The practice demands that we see challenging tracks, stay connected to the landscape ahead, and recover the trail when we lose it. We also need to listen and watch for natural alarms, study the animal’s behavior we’re following, move quietly, and take the terrain into consideration. Which helps us anticipate where the animal might be and what it’s doing.
Anchor
As we trail an animal, it’s important to mark certain tracks with a mental anchor for when we lose the trail. By remembering where the last good track was located, we can return to that point if the animal trail disappears. Otherwise we could be walking aimlessly for hours.
Live Trails
A live or fresh trail means tracks that were made within a few hours. Staying on your animal’s trail means we need to be able to recognize live trails from old ones. This skill alone could make the difference between getting lost in a maze of crisscrossing tracks of a similar age and actually finding the animal (or human).
Scuffing
Kick tracking or scuffing refers to the act of following your own tracks. Learning to track your own footprints is a vital skill that’ll help you learn how to trail animals. Set out on a mile or so hike. Every so often make a scuff-mark in the soil. The key is to create just enough of a disturbance that you can recognize the trail as yours.
Tracking Stick
A tracking stick is a stick about three feet long that we use to mark the distance of the animal’s stride, measured by the distance between the heel of one print to the heel of the next. This will help to ensure we’re still trailing the same animal. You may have to look for clues, such as bruised blades of grass, broken pine needles and/or overturned leaves or stones. If you don’t have access to a thin, cylindrical pole — like a ski pole, for example — a branch is the next best thing to use as a tracking stick. Some folks even prefer the natural alternative.
Where to Find a Track Pattern
Mud is the easiest place. The best mud is found near water banks. The higher the clay content, the more defined the track will be. If the mud is too soft, the track tends to collapse. Therefore, it won’t hold the details of the print. So, look for drier mud when you first start searching for tracks. Drier mud holds the print details. The only caveat here is that it’s difficult to age tracks in mud. They don’t breakdown as quickly as tracks in more fragile soil types.
Sand offers another great medium to spot tracks. Wet sand works best due to its stiffer consistency. If the sand is too dry, the difficulty increases. Dry sand fills in the details the minute the foot leaves it. In this case, we’d need to look for the overall shape of the track.
Garden soil offers a firmer alternative to sand. Look in patches of dirt in and around your own garden. If you don’t have access to wilderness areas, gardens make a great substitute.
Spotting an animal track in pine needles takes practice. There’s a trick to trailing an animal in any sort of duff. Hoofed animals, like deer and moose, break pine needles as they tromp through wooded terrain. Lighter animals don’t. When pine needles have been stepped on, they bruise. If wetted, even by the moisture of morning dew, they turn darker in the areas where the animal has walked. So, if you’re trailing an animal in the forest, look for tiny breaks in the needles, shading, and spots where a pile has been disturbed.
Leaf litter may be the most difficult. The leaves keep tracks from making detailed impressions in the soil. However, if we lift the leaves, we may still find tracks in the soil underneath. Look for depressions in the leaves or even puncture marks made by the animal’s claws (unless they have retractable claws like mountain lions, bobcats, etc).
Important Tips
- Keep the trail of tracks between you and the sun. The light casts shadows in the track and makes it easier to see. Use a flashlight in low-lit areas.
- Don’t stare down at each track as you hike. Note: in the beginning you may need to examine every track pattern in order to get the hang of recognizing what to look for.
- Look ahead at the trail of tracks.
- Look for other animal signs … scat and/or droppings, scratches in tree bark, chewed vegetation, fur snagged on branches or in bark, gnawed bones, shed antlers (depending on the time of year), discarded feathers, rubbings on trees, nut shells, burrows, dens, nests, or well-worn animal trails. It takes practice to spot some of these.
- Be patient. The journey of learning each track is half the fun!
If you’re familiar with how to identify animal tracks, share your tips in the comments. For the rest of you, how do you feel about trailing an animal through the wilderness?
If you enjoyed this post, please share. Thank you!
Sue Coletta
Sue Coletta is an award-winning crime writer and an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. Feedspot and Expertido.org named her Murder Blog as “Best 100 Crime Blogs on the Net.” She also blogs on the Kill Zone (Writer's Digest "101 Best Websites for Writers"), Writers Helping Writers, and StoryEmpire. Sue lives with her husband in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. Her backlist includes psychological thrillers, the Mayhem Series (books 1-3) and Grafton County Series, and true crime/narrative nonfiction. Now, she exclusively writes eco-thrillers, Mayhem Series (books 4-9 and continuing). Sue's appeared on the Emmy award-winning true crime series, Storm of Suspicion, and three episodes of A Time to Kill on Investigation Discovery. When she's not writing, she loves spending time with her murder of crows, who live free but come when called by name. And nature feeds her soul.
18 Comments
Diane Lynch
Hello Sue. MTW2018. I will be reading Blessed Mayhem. Email Danly30@aol.com. Messenger me Diane Desmarest Lynch. Looking forward to it. Already loaded kindle sample so I can start as soon as I finish another book.
Sue Coletta
Just sent you an email, Diane. 🙂
lisa ciarfella
Very interesting stuff here Sue! Could use it in my writing someday.
Thanks much for this!
Sue Coletta
Thanks, Lisa. I’m so glad you found it useful. Hope you had a nice Easter!
Vivienne
Definitely one to keep. It will be of great help to me as I write fantasy and I have a character who is very good at tracking. Already I’ve had him track something in 2 books. This will be extremely helpful in the future when he goes about followint someone or something.
Sue Coletta
Oh, good, Vivienne. Glad I could help!
patriciaruthsusan
A fascinating post, Sue. This is a keeper. Thanks. 🙂 — Suzanne
Sue Coletta
Thank you, Suzanne! I’m so glad you enjoyed it.
Denise Hendrickson
This is awesome Sue, thanks for sharing. I always enjoy reading your posts. You always provide such fascinating information from your research. When I used to go hiking and camping, I always enjoyed looking for animal tracks and trying to follow them as long as I could. It definitely made for some great fun and good exercise too, lol.
Sue Coletta
Aw, thank you, Denise. I love searching for tracks, too. So much fun!
Garry Rodgers
You sure cover the spectrum, Sue. I think I told you I grew up on a trapline in central Canada. My dad had animal tracking down to a science and I’m with Craig where dad said you have to think like an animal. They don’t always take the easiest route, rather they use cover but usually have a destination in mind so you have to do some anticipation.
Once I joined the police and the Emergency Response Team, we took some man tracking instruction with an experienced bushman. It was fascinating to see what track evidence humans leave behind and most don’t really try to cover tracks. They also usually take the easiest route – especially when chased by a dog 🙂
Sue Coletta
Hahaha. I bet they do! You never told me about growing up on a trapline. I’ll be waiting for stories via email. 😉
Anticipating the animal’s moves takes a lot of “dirt time.” I’m afraid it’s a little outside my wheelhouse as I’m still learning the art of reading animal tracks. It’s not as easy as it looks!
I bet the skills you learned from your dad came in handy with the Emergency Response Team. In the video link David shared, the tracker tells us about some of the ways we can recognize signs made by humans.
C. S. Boyack
Done it many times. One of the best tips is to think like the animal you’re trailing. Most of them won’t walk through open areas. They will use small gullies and squeeze through thickets you might not be able to. Using this tip, sometimes you can mark the last location and skip ahead hundreds of yards to find the track once more.
Sue Coletta
Great tip, Craig! Thanks for sharing.
Margot Kinberg
Oh, this is really interesting, Sue! As I was reading your post, I was thinking about how difficult it would be not to leave a trail. Lots of possibility, too, for the crime writer…
Sue Coletta
Right? Everywhere we go we leave behind signs. If that doesn’t get the creative juices flowing, nothing will. Thanks for pointing that out, Margot!
David Hermens
Very interesting. Up till now all I knew about tracking was what I have seen depicted as ways to subvert it. Luke with his pepper and spices to throw off the dogs, walking in a river or stream to leave no tracks, back tracking (doubling back) to confuse trackers and keeping to a hard surface like rock to leave no marks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dDS0ufVM3g
Sue Coletta
Excellent additions, David! Thanks for including the link. He offers great ways to distinguish an old track from a new one.