Mountain Matters
An Introduction to Animal Tracking
Photography: Mark Nelson
Tracking in its purest form is about the art of seeing — seeing the big picture of patterns and signs and observing the most minute details. It’s about developing an awareness of “sign,” learning to read the land, and asking what, when, where, how and why. Much can be gleaned from the animal signatures on the land if we simply take the time to slow down, look around and study our environment.
When you are on well-used hiking and biking trails in the Park City area, you can easily see the larger animal tracks of coyote, moose, elk, horse, deer and bobcat. You’ll need to look closely, however, to identify the sign of smaller mammals in this mountain region
The best approach to understanding which animal left its mark is to look for the track pattern. Every animal, including man, has a preferred movement pattern. We prefer to walk — left, right, left, right — as do the dog, cat and deer families. Some animals have hind foot tracks superimposed on front foot tracks, which is called direct register. Animals that tend to have an irregular walk (or indirect register) are bears, beavers and raccoons. Other animals that have short front feet and bigger hind feet prefer to hop, like rabbits, squirrels, or chipmunks. Animals such as weasels, minks, ferrets, pine martens, otters and wolverines prefer to bound. These bounders bring their front feet down side by side, and as they tip forward, the hind feet come down on top of the front tracks and push off. What looks like just one footprint is actually the imprint of two feet.
Once you’ve identified the movement pattern of the animal that left the track, try to identify the family species (i.e. dog, deer, weasel, etc.). This can be accomplished best by taking measurements of the track’s foot length and width and comparing it to a tracking field guide. A good field guide can greatly enhance your learning curve. (I like the “Peterson Field Guide — Animal Tracks” by Olaus J. Murie, edited by Mark Elbroch). And remember, not all individual tracks are perfect, and not all field guide pictures and sketches are perfect, either. This is because there are so many variables and differences in conditions, like the age of the track, the exposure to weather or the health of the animal.
Aside from their tracks, animals leave behind other signs of their presence in our mountains. Keep your eyes open for scat (fecal matter); tree and twig chew marks (by beaver, rabbit, deer); tree rubs and ground scrapes (by deer or cats); wallows (from elk and buffalo); hair, fur and feathers left on the ground or caught in twigs/branches; kills (by predatory animals like bobcat, coyote, fox, eagle, hawk, owl); smells (by weasels and skunks, or urine sprays by dog and cat families); sounds like a coyote’s yelp/bark, a wolf’s howl, a bear’s grunt, cat screams, deer and elk bleats and mews or moose grunts and bellows; dams (by beavers); moose, deer and elk meadow beds; and ground or tree burrows (by badgers, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, owls and some songbirds).
The next time you’re out and about, stop often and really look around. Take the time to familiarize yourself with at least a few of the more common animal families. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll be able to read tracks and signs and add a whole new dimension to your outdoor experiences.
Chas Rauch is a longtime mountain man who has lived and worked in the local Utah mountains for the past 22 years. He has been in the educational/ recreational field since he first started guiding at age 18. He’s been an EMT and a private school teacher, worked for Outward Bound back East, led hunting trips for bear, deer, and elk, and was a Utah State law enforcement ranger. In ’97 Chas completed a dream adventure, crossing the United States (3,600 miles) on horseback. He and his favorite quarter horse George now live on their ranch, high up in the Uinta Mountains near Wolf Creek Pass. Chas is the Wilderness Guide and Naturalist for the Talisker Club located here in Park City.
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