Animal tracking

[huntmeister]

Here is a very educational site for you hunters and your young hunters.
be a good pass time outdoor event to go tracking with all the snow, and a good learning experiance for the young future hunters.

http://www.ussartf.org/animal_tracking.htm

[327poc]

Good find

[knu2xs]

Tracking is a lot of fun, but remember that, as a general rule, only about 10% of Tracking is done by sight, most is done by feel. Learning to read the pressure releases, which is like reading a book can be quite challenging. Back in the early 1980's I took a week long class at Tom Brown's, a.k.a. The Tracker, dealing with Survival, Tracking & Nature Observation, which was the best outdoor related thing I've ever done. While I took the class to learn how to hunt better, as well as to keep up with the Bloodhounds I had at the time, who already knew how to track I might add, I ended up getting out of hunting with a weapon and hunted simply to touch Deer. I found that reaching out and touching a Deer, especially a Buck, and scaring the living crap out of them was far more rewarding than dropping one for good. Doing this sort of thing isn't as hard as it seems, especially when using "Scent Masking" techniques perfected by those who lived around here way before we showed up. If they didn't get things like this right they didn't eat............

One of the things Tom taught us was to make a "Track Box," which is nothing more than a small patch of ground you can place tracks in and watch how they degrade over time. My wife thought I was nuts to set there for hours watching dirt, which I told her was more exciting than watching the grass grow. You actually don't have to set there and watch to learn how tracks degrade when exposed to sun, wind, rain or time. Just make your impressions and check them once or twice a day and it will help you quite a bit when it comes to understanding how the edges break down..............

I won't go into the common misconceptions about how to tell a Buck from a Doe track but would like to pass on that, and once again this is generally speaking, a Deer's track is based on it's anatomy. This means that the "primary" pressure release on a Doe's track will be on the inside of the track since her pelvic bone is wider than a Buck's, where the most pressure (the deepest impression) is on the outside of the track. For what It's worth, Deer leave tracks that are referred to as "Direct Register" just like a cat's, meaning they (usually) step into their front tracks with their hind hooves. Another little tid-bit, you can usually tell a Coyote's track by drawing a line from one outside toenail across to the other, if the line crosses over the center of the inner pads a Coyote probably left that track.......

Sorry for the ramble. It's been awhile since I've done this sort of thing and "stuff" that I thought I had forgotten just started coming out in bits & pieces................

[jklund38]

Thanks, that looks like a good resource!