TRACKING LITERATURE
The Tracking Literature library gathers research on tracks and signs, trailing, and animal behaviour and ecology, together with related fields such as human tracking, forensics, ichnology and taphonomy. Behaviour and natural history papers are here even when they never mention tracking, because understanding behaviour matters to trackers.
Search every field, or narrow the list with the filters. Each paper has its own page with a synopsis, keywords and the full citation. Where a paper is open access, or the authors or publisher have given permission, you can download the PDF; otherwise the page links to the publisher or a legal free copy.
2000Publisher link
Manual de huellas de algunos mamíferos terrestres de Colombia
Jaguar, tapir, spectacled bear, capybara: tracks of 33 Colombian mammals in one field guide. Written in Spanish for a tracking course, this manual pairs track drawings and measurements with skulls, maps and natural history notes, and shows simple ways to record and cast tracks in the field.
2000Publisher link
Molecular tracking of mountain lions in the Yosemite Valley region in California: genetic analysis using microsatellites and faecal DNA
How many mountain lions really pass through Yosemite Valley? By reading the DNA in 32 scats picked up along hiking trails, researchers identified 10 individual mountain lions, 9 of which had never been caught, and showed that some “lion” scats were in fact from bobcats. Together with captured animals, that made at least 16 mountain lions in the area, counted without laying a hand on most of them.
2000Publisher link
Observer error in counts of macropod scats
Can you tell a wallaby’s scat from a pademelon’s? In this Tasmanian study, every one of 12 observers made mistakes, and those who identified scats every week did no better than complete beginners. The test also showed that standard searches missed up to 12% of scats, depending on the vegetation, a reminder that scat counts are only as good as the eyes doing the counting.
2000PDF available
Scouting and Patrolling
How do military scouts read an enemy they cannot see? This 2000 U.S. Marine Corps field manual shows how tracks and signs reveal a group’s size, formation, pace and even morale: a runner’s toes dig in, a fresh track in damp ground keeps sharp edges, and a puddle splashes most on the side a vehicle was heading.
2000Publisher link
Tracking Tigers: Guidelines for Estimating Wild Tiger Populations Using the Pugmark Technique
For decades India counted its tigers from their footprints. This field manual shows how forest guards were taught to do it: building soft-earth track pads across forest roads, tracing hind prints on glass, telling a tiger cub’s print from a leopard’s by stride length, and sexing tigers from the shape of a box drawn around the print. The author is frank that the method is only as good as the skill of the people using it.
1999Publisher link
An Improved Estimate of Trail Detectability for Snow-Trail Surveys
Is a meadow with few tracks really empty, or have the tracks faded? Using wooden blocks to make artificial tracks in Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains, researchers showed that small tracks in exposed, windy sites disappear much faster than large tracks in sheltered forest. They offer a simple correction so that snow-track counts can be compared fairly across species and habitats.
1999Publisher link
Identification of mustelid species: otter (Lutra lutra), American mink (Mustela vison) and polecat (Mustela putorius), by analysis of DNA from faecal samples
Can you tell an otter spraint from mink or polecat scat by smell and look alone? In Denmark, researchers built a DNA test to tell the three apart, and found that one of 9 scats classed as mink or polecat was actually an otter’s. The test also confirmed mink along a river where they were only suspected.
1999Publisher link
Identifying Sex and Individuals of Pine Marten Using Snow Track Measurements
Can you tell a male pine marten from a female by their tracks in the snow? In a Polish forest, measuring the 5 shortest leaps on a trail sorted most tracks by sex correctly, but telling one marten from another proved much harder. Only the biggest male could be picked out every time.
1999Publisher link
Identifying individual mountain lions Felis concolor by their tracks: refinement of an innovative technique
Can you tell one mountain lion from another by their footprints? Researchers in California photographed and measured the tracks of radio-collared mountain lions whose identities were hidden from the analyst, and found the method worked for some animals but counted three mountain lions as two. Substrate, light and the number of tracks all mattered, and heel width, a measurement often used by trackers, turned out to be one of the weakest clues.
1999Publisher link
Mesopredator release and avifaunal extinctions in a fragmented system
What happens to songbirds when the coyotes leave? In canyons surrounded by San Diego suburbs, track stations showed that where coyotes were scarce, foxes, opossums and pet cats moved in, and native scrub birds disappeared. Coyotes kill cats, and cat owners keep pets indoors when coyotes are around, so the top predator indirectly helps the birds.
1999PDF available
Reasons Why Predators Cannot Be Inferred from Nest Remains
Can you tell who raided a bird’s nest from the broken eggs left behind? This 1999 commentary lists the many reasons why not: different predators leave the same signs, one predator leaves many patterns, and scavengers and even the nesting bird can change the scene within days. A sobering read for anyone who interprets feeding signs.
1999PDF available
Responses of Stoats to Scent Lures in Tracking Tunnels
Stoats are a serious threat to New Zealand’s hole-nesting and flightless birds, but they are hard to count because they rarely walk through footprint tracking tunnels. Researchers at Lake Waikaremoana tried luring them with their own scent, made from stoat anal sac secretions in a slow-release cube. Lured tunnels got about six times as many stoat footprints, the lures lasted about seven weeks, and rats and mice simply ignored them.
1999PDF available
Rhino Tracking with the CyberTracker Field Computer
What if the best trackers, who often cannot read or write, could record everything they see straight into a computer? In South Africa’s Karoo National Park, trackers Karel Benadie and James Minye used an icon-based handheld computer to identify individual black rhinos from the cracks in their spoor and record where they went and what they ate. This early account of CyberTracker shows how tracking data can help guard rhinos against poachers and drought, and give trackers long-overdue recognition.
1999PDF available
Selection of bed-sites by roe deer Capreolus capreolus fawns in a boreal forest landscape
Where do roe deer fawns hide while their mothers feed? Following 19 radio-collared fawns in Norway’s logged boreal forest, researchers found the fawns chose beds with taller vegetation and more canopy cover than nearby spots, yet scattered them across forest of every age, fields and bogs. Spreading out like this may force foxes and lynx to search everywhere.
1999PDF available
Territoriality and spatial patterns of white rhinoceros in Matobo National Park, Zimbabwe
Inside a fenced Zimbabwean park, just a few white rhino bulls held huge territories, up to 5041 ha, leaving two thirds of the adult males without one. Researchers followed radio collars and spoor, and watched bulls scatter dung and spray urine to mark their ground. Fences, they found, change how both sexes use space.
1999PDF available
Use of pellet group counts in determining density and habitat use of moose Alces alces in Finland
Can moose dung tell you how many moose spent the winter in a forest? In central Finland, researchers counted pellet groups along strips and on small plots and found that the plots gave twice as many moose as the strips, from the very same ground. The droppings also showed clearly that moose wintered in young pine stands, where they could reach plenty of twigs.
1999PDF available
Using Presence-Absence Data to Build and Test Spatial Habitat Models for the Fisher in the Klamath Region, U.S.A.
Where do fishers still live in the forests of northern California and southern Oregon? Using footprints on sooted track plates and camera photos from 682 old surveys, plus satellite maps, researchers built a model that correctly predicted fisher detections at almost 80% of new survey stations. Dense forest canopy and large hardwoods stood out, pointing to low- and mid-elevation forests as key to the fisher’s future.
1999PDF available
Winter bed-site selection by red deer Cervus elaphus xanthopygus and roe deer Capreolus capreolus bedfordi in forests of northeastern China
Where does a deer sleep when the forest drops to minus 40? Following trails in the snow in northeastern China, researchers found that roe deer scraped every bed and chose thick conifer cover at night, while the larger red deer never scraped and changed their choices less between day and night. By day, both favoured south-facing slopes, and roe deer hid in denser ground cover.
1998Publisher link
A Population Estimator Based on Network Sampling of Tracks in the Snow
How do you count wolves across more than 31,000 km² of Alaskan wilderness? Flying low after fresh snow, survey teams followed every fresh wolf trail they found, back to where the wolves were when the snow stopped and forward to the pack, and used the squares each trail crossed to estimate about 256 wolves. The method rests entirely on reading tracks in the snow, and needs skilled pilots and trackers to work.
1998Publisher link
Cached fungi in non-native conifer forests and their importance for red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris L.)
In autumn, red squirrels in the spruce plantations of northern England and southern Scotland tuck mushrooms onto branches right next to the trunk. Walking forest transects, researchers found 58 cached mushrooms, most of them yellow russulas, with squirrel tooth marks, more along forest edges than inside the trees. Most were gone within two weeks, but the authors estimate each squirrel’s range may hold one to two days’ worth of food in these stores.
About the library
What is the Tracking Literature library?
A searchable collection of research papers on tracks and signs, trailing, and animal behaviour and ecology, gathered by Original Wisdom. Each paper has its own page with a plain-language summary, keywords, the full citation and a link to the paper.
Can I download the papers?
Where a paper is open access, or the authors or publisher have given permission, you can download the PDF from its page. Otherwise the page links to the publisher or to a legal free copy.
Who writes the summaries?
Kersey Lawrence of Original Wisdom summarises each paper: what the researchers did, found and concluded, how tracking was used, who did the tracking, and what it means for trackers.
How do I find papers on one species or place?
Type it in the search box, which searches every field including scientific names, or tick it in the Species or Region filter. Filters combine, so you can narrow the list to, for example, leopard papers from Botswana.
How should I cite a paper or a summary?
Each paper page gives the full citation and DOI of the original paper, and a ready-made citation for Original Wisdom's summary of it.