April 2025 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
Our new book is out! TRACKING ANIMALS – A GUIDE TO TRAILING WILDLIFE, by Lee Gutteridge and Kersey Lawrence and published by Jacana Media. Filled with stories from Lee and Kersey, and other CyberTracker Evaluators. Available in print and as an eBook, and ordering info is inside. Also, look in the ONLINE EVENTS section of the Jan 2025 newsletter for links to a monthly article we write for the Hoedspruit Explorer, for some instruction and stories from the book to help whet your tracking appetite.
March 2025 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
We found the Montana mountain lion’s tracks on a fresh skiff of newly fallen snow, crossing the road and ducking under a barbed wire fence along a trail that the deer regularly used. Her tracks were crisp, and our guide asked us if we’d like to abandon our original plan to look for a variety of tracks and signs, or would we like to follow her…
What would you do? To find out what our answer was, read on in the Snow Tracking section below…
January 2025 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
Four researchers and trainers working across continents, all with a passion for trackers and tracking.
Kersey is from the USA, Jiska is from the Netherlands, and both of them currently live in South Africa. Along with Matt Nelson (USA) and Sandy Reed (USA), the Soul of Tracking team are collaborating in a long-term international Tracking Research project through the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Read more about it here.
December 2024 Year in Review from Original Wisdom
Team Original Wisdom, Kersey Lawrence, Lee Gutteridge, Sandy and Cal Reed, Shane Hawkins, Hillary Lisowski, Samantha Snodgrass, Ozzy Banda, would all like to wish you happy holidays and a healthy and prosperous new year. As we close another year, we want to take a moment to thank all of you who have supported and joined us in our mission. Here’s to all the joys of the holiday season and to a New Year filled with hope, progress, and lots of Tracking!
Song and music by John Edmund, Story in the Sand.
November 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
René Nauta from Holland tracks fallow deer in tough conditions in West Sussex, England. He earned his Trailing Specialist from CyberTracker Conservation, earning him the title of Senior Tracker when combined with his already achieved Track & Sign ID Specialist.
There are a number of new Specialists this month, in North America, Europe, and Africa. We’ll tell you a bit about the ones that Original Wisdom was directly involved with in this newsletter. The community of skilled Trackers is gathering momentum!
October 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
Some nipped twigs taken from inside the large dung balls of an endangered black rhinoceros. We are so lucky to see these on their infrequent trails and I keep them in my pocket as “awareness reminders” of these secretive and dangerous beings.
Photo credit: Kersey Lawrence
Featured Event from South Africa:
On the Trail of Elephants: A story with Finger Lakes Community College participants from our upcoming book.
By Kersey Lawrence & Lee Gutteridge
Featured Event in North America:
Go Wild! Nature Fair in Coyote Run Fairfield Park
By Sandy Reed
Featured Event in Human Culture:
Wild Clay Pots
by Cal Reed
September 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
What it means to be a Specialist Tracker for CyberTracker…
In the CyberTracker system for evaluating trackers, Specialist is the highest level that you can earn. Not many people pursue it, because the standard is so rigorous. It’s rigorous enough to be called the “Gold Standard” for international wildlife tracking certifications. Part of the rigor comes from the fact that evaluators never know what the questions are going to be, before they walk out in the morning of a certification and encounter whatever tracks, signs, and trails that mother nature has provided. And every darn day is different.
August 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
We just submitted the draft of our new book on the art and science of: Tracking Animals – a Guide to Trailing Wildlife, for editing to our publisher at Jacana Media. We are hoping that it will be out by the December holiday season!
In it, you’ll find instructions on what to do, what not to do, and teaching stories. These stories aren’t just from the authors, Lee and Kersey, but also from many of the high level trackers and evaluators in the CyberTracker Tracker Certification system.
June 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
On the 25th of May, in the Thornybush Game Reserve of South Africa, five Master Trackers and five Senior Trackers, from Africa and North America, met after some days spent tracking together, and evenings spent discussing protocol around the campfire. During an unexpected and highly emotional ceremony, two of those Senior Trackers were awarded Master Tracker status for their decades of service to trackers and tracking.
We congratulate the world’s newest Master Trackers on the Gold-Standard CyberTracker Tracker Certification System, Ekson Ndlovu and Lee Gutteridge.
Read on to find out more about this huge honor…
May 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
This month’s leading photo features Virginia Opossum tracks (Didelphis virginiana). The lower track with the large thumb sticking out towards the right is the left hind track, while the one above it is the left front track. The tracks were made in the fine substrate under the Mt. Vernon, Ohio bridge along the Kokosing River. This bridge was one of our stopping points for the CyberTracker Ohio Specialist Identification Certification that Original Wisdom hosted in April. Photo credit: Sandy Reed.
April 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
Giza Mrembo, Swahili for “Beautiful Darkness,” stepped into the red spotlight of the other vehicle. We saw her as a moving shadow in the night, hunting. The melanistic (black) leopardess, softly but confidently padded through the dry acacia scrubland of Laikipia Wilderness in Kenya. Without the spotlight, even in partial moonlight, she stood out, unable to hide herself against the golden soils in the open landscape.
March 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
A relaxed female leopard lounges on the top of a large termite mound. She was in the process of dispersing from her mom (gaining her independence) in a private reserve of South Africa.
This photo was taken by by Dylan Bernstein, our Yogi Guide in February’s Ashtanga Yoga, Tracking and Nature Guiding Program. Read more about this program in our Events in Africa section.
February 2024 News, Stories and Events from Original Wisdom
An eastern coyote straddle trots across Alum Creek in Ohio. This months leading photo was taken by Original Wisdom staff Sandy Reed in one of the rare moments this year that snow accumulated in central Ohio.
Tracking in the Wisconsin Northwoods – Nov 2023
We will be following the elk and the deer again in the Northwoods as the land is on the cusp of turning from leaves to snow. You never know what you are going to get and it’s always a full-body, full-brain adventure with our kith and kin. Trailing is a love song to Tracking. […]
Daily Routines in Tracking – The Importance of Repetition
I’m not trying to sell you our course, but to let you know that the processes we follow are really helpful (many of them, I’m revealing for free here in this Newsletter). That’s what we aim to be… helpful. We want more people to become trackers (and naturalists, guides, teachers, and scientists) because we believe […]
THE foundation of Tracking – Aging Tracks & Signs
When it comes to tracking, the most important thing to learn well, and the largest field to study (it’s endless, really) is track and sign aging. If you can tell that a trail is fresh, you’ll have more success following it and finding the animal. As a general rule, fresher tracks stand out more than […]
The “Secrets of Success” for Tracking – The Lost Trail Drill
When it comes to the trailing aspects of tracking, predominantly following and finding animals, even Master Trackers lose the trail. To me, that’s a refreshing idea. It makes me feel better about things when I lose the trail as a Senior Tracker, and it makes my students feel better when they hear this and when […]
Tracker Tuesdays #13, OriginalWisdom.com “News for Trackers”
October Answers to our #WeeklyTrackingChallenge Interested in online and correspondence tracking courses? Visit us at TrackerMentoring.com! Answer list: An African wildcat track from South Africa, Crested francolin feathers from South Africa, and Mud-dauber wasp sign collecting mud in Connecticut in the USA. (Sorry for the delay on these answers for October while I was defending […]
Tracker Tuesdays #11
Whoops, we slipped a bit! This newsletter covers questions posed in both July and Aug, 2020. We’ve moved to a monthly newsletter format for #TrackerTuesdays, so a new question SHOULD be posed every Tuesday, and answers SHOULD be published on the first Tuesday of every month. We apologize for the delay in publishing this one, […]
Tracker Tuesdays – Answers for June 2020
We’ve moved to a monthly newsletter format for #TrackerTuesdays, so a new question will be posed every Tuesday, and answers will be published on the first Tuesday of every month. Answer list: Spotted towhee from the Channel Islands in California; Namaqua rock mouse nest from the Republic of South Africa; zebra tracks from the Republic […]
Tracker Tuesdays – Week 9
Tracker Tuesdays – Week 9 Answers to our Daily Tracking Challenge This is a time to create and share content that engages, entertains, educates and inspires the world. HEADS UP, TRACKERS! Even though we aren’t out of the proverbial “woods” yet with this coronavirus pandemic, I need to start transitioning away from a #DAILYTRACKINGCHALLENGE. While […]