reflected moonlight. Nothing but trees, shrubs, shadows, and crisp, cool air. The canyon was utterly silent. I coaxed myself back to sleep, but in what seemed an instant I was wide awake yet again. I gazed out over the edge of my truck bed and beyond the open tailgate at the pines and canyon slopes. Still nothing. Eventually I fell asleep again, and slept through to the first hints of light the next morning.
It was cold, but I was eager to head up drainage to discover where the cat had been when we encountered each other in the wash the night before. So I donned several layers and grabbed a water bottle to fill at the spring. But I stopped at the perimeter of my camp, perhaps 10 meters from where I'd slept. There were her tracks, and she was accompanied by two large kittens, perhaps 10 to 12 months of age. I followed her as she circled my camp, where at intervals she approached where I slept to have another look. She appeared curious. The kittens too, but they never approached as closely as she did. Then she led her kittens down to Nettle Springs for a drink. I continued to follow her as she circled uphill behind the springs and back to where I had slept. She had peered down at me from a height, and then she moved with her family up the hill to the plateau above.
It took the remainder of the day to piece the entire story together, after following her tracks in every direction to relay this story: She'd followed my tracks for half a mile up the drainage to where we'd met in the dark. No doubt she'd heard me coming. She moved off to the north side of the drainage, lay sphinxlike in the shadows of a manzanita bush, and watched me as I passed. From there, she worked her way up the hillside, cutting east as she climbed, paralleling the wash below. Soon she began a more vertical ascent to the north, before dropping into a tiny hidden canyon. It was there she'd left her kittens.
Together the three Cougars dropped back into the wash and followed my tracks toward my camp for well over a mile. She came into my camp, circling, investigating, and then eventually took her kittens to drink. After circling above my camp for another look, they climbed to the mesa above and headed toward Pine Mountain, several miles to the east. It was the direction from which she'd come when followed by the male, so perhaps somewhere near the mountain she'd cached another deer to feed her growing kittens.
The author's footprint and the front and hind tracks of the female cougar that followed him back to his camp in southern California. Her front track is below, and the hind track above.
What Is Wildlife Tracking?
Wildlife tracking involves the learned skills of interpreting animal tracks and signs, as well as the skills that allow people to follow the subtle signs of beasts over varied terrain. Tracking is about finding animals. It also enriches our outdoor experiences and allows us a real way to engage with wildlife. I never glimpsed a Cougar during my time at Nettle Springs, and I might have overlooked our exchange were it not for the tracks that betrayed the story.
Tracking is many things to many people. This book is about identifying and interpreting some of the physical signs that animals leave in their wake: their tracks, scats, and other signs of scent marking. For those folks also interested in following tracks, refer to Practical Tracking: A Guide to Following Footprints and Finding Animals (Liebenberg, Louw, and Elbroch 2010) for an introduction to that subject. Enjoy.
Crisp trail and characteristic drag marks of a mourning dove.
Tracking in Wildlife Conservation,
Research, and Monitoring
Wildlife tracking skills are real and can be learned by anyone with patience and persistence. Tracking, however, is a complex skill that requires intelligence and substantial practice to master (Liebenberg 1990; Stander et al. 1997; De Angelo, Paviolo, and Di Bitetti 2010). Readers should also realize that tracking skills are but tools to be wielded for some purpose and not an end in and of themselves; hunting, education, poaching detection, wildlife monitoring, research, and conservation are but some of its varied applications.
Tracking skills are field skills essential to field science, and field science is the foundation upon which our understanding of wildlife is built. Thus, wildlife tracking is fundamental to both field science and wildlife conservation. Furthermore, conservation is our weapon against the insatiable appetites of commercialism and destructive expansion. Conservation constitutes a means of protecting the diversity upon which the health of ecosystems is so dependent. Realize that wildlife tracking has and could continue to contribute much to current and future conservation efforts—such as identifying wildlife corridors and monitoring endangered species. The larger the number of people with wildlife tracking skills, the greater the potential that a strong understanding of natural history and community ecology will guide current conservation efforts. In our minds, this is intelligent conservation.
CyberTracker Evaluator Adriaan Louw discussing the nuances of antelope tracks with Senior Tracker Johnson Mhlanga as part of efforts to sift out those most knowledgeable for employment.
Science and conservation that relies upon wildlife tracking skills to inform their findings and management decisions are only as good as the observers employed to do the work (Evans et al. 2009, De Angelo et al. 2010, Liebenberg et al. 2010, Elbroch et al. [in press]). Numerous studies have and continue to employ observers without the prerequisite tracking skills to record accurate data (Anderson 2001; Karanth et al. 2003; Evans et al. 2009). Conservation efforts built upon poor data are often counterproductive and misleading (Anderson 2001; Galloway et al. 2006; Nerbonne and Nelson 2008; De Angelo et al. 2010). We hope this book will contribute to the training of California's conservationists.
The paramount skill of the tracker, and indeed any field scientist, is humility. Know your limits. You will always find signs that you will be unable to interpret. Become comfortable with saying “I don't know.” Regardless of your increasing experience, you will continue to make mistakes. Take comfort in the fact that the top trackers in the world make mistakes with regularity (Stander et al. 1997; Liebenberg et al. 2010); the best trackers in the world are also the first to admit that they made a mistake and to correct themselves.
Also recognize the limits inherent in the interpretation of tracks and signs. Tracking is the interpretation of indirect signs, meaning that we are attempting to recreate what an animal did in the field without ever having seen it. Scientists who employ trackers must be aware of these inherent limitations, and those trackers who work for others must communicate their limitations coherently. It is detective work, and sometimes we are wrong. That's correct—wrong—and it's no big deal unless we cling to our first interpretation instead of being willing to adapt as new information presents itself. We can only make the best guess with the evidence at hand, and if new evidence points in a new direction, we should throw out our old ideas and make new, better informed ones. Learn not to be attached to your conclusions.
A beautiful trail of an unknown snake species slithering across exposed dunes.
That said, the possibilities in utilizing wildlife tracking skills in the field, and as part of conservation efforts, are limited only by our imagination. Because so few have employed wildlife trackers—or any but the most rudimentary wildlife tracking skills in research and conservation efforts—the potential work ahead of us is both tremendous and exciting (Elbroch et al. [in press]). May tracking and trackers be more greatly appreciated because of this work.
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