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.
2004Publisher link
Differentiating Mexican gray wolf and coyote scats using DNA analysis
Can you tell a wolf scat from a coyote scat by its size or smell? In Arizona and New Mexico, DNA tests on scats from the small Mexican gray wolf showed that 42% of scats called wolf by location and odor were in fact coyote, and almost half of the “small” scats were wolf. Only scats 28 mm or wider were reliably wolf.
2004PDF available
Estimating wolf densities in forested areas using network sampling of tracks in snow
How do you count wolves in a forest where you can barely see them? In Algonquin Park, Canada, researchers flew a helicopter over fresh snow, followed every wolf trail forward to the pack and back again, and counted pack members from their trails and beds. Their estimate of 2.5 wolves per 100 km² closely matched a radio-collar study, though trailing through thick forest made the survey slow.
2004Publisher link
Evaluation of sign surveys as a way to estimate the relative abundance of American mink (Mustela vison)
Can scats and footprints on a riverbank tell you how many mink are around? On three English river systems, trained surveyors found mink signs reliably regardless of who was looking, but the number of signs swung widely with the season, following the mink’s breeding and kit-rearing cycle. At low densities, signs revealed mink even in months when traps caught none, at a fraction of the cost of trapping.
2004Publisher link
Habitat selection by the red fox Vulpes vulpes (L. 1758) in an Alpine area
Where do red foxes spend the winter in the Alps? By mapping 922 fox scats along mountain footpaths every month for a year in Italy’s Gran Paradiso National Park, researchers found that foxes stick to forest and lower slopes in the cold months, likely drawn by the carcasses of chamois and ibex. The results suggest foxes may hold “vertical” home ranges that stretch up and down the mountain to cover their needs through the seasons.
2004PDF available
Home Range Characteristics of Fishers in California
How much forest does a fisher need? Following radio-collared fishers in California’s two remaining populations, researchers found that males roam about four times as far as females, and that females on the north coast need almost three times the area of those in the southern Sierra Nevada, where black oak may make the forest richer. Their measurements of what these home ranges contain give forest managers a picture of the landscapes fishers live in.
2004PDF available
Metaphysical Tracking: The Oldest Ecopsychology
Have you ever “known” where an animal was before you found their tracks? In this essay, a tracking teacher gathers stories from the Kalahari to Labrador of trackers who see trails in dreams, feel heat on a fresh trail, or feel they have become the animal they follow. He asks what lies behind these experiences, how they change trackers’ lives, and how they might be tested.
2004PDF available
Prey selection by caracal in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
What does a caracal really hunt? Following caracal tracks for 537 km with Kalahari San trackers and analysing 116 scats, researchers found that caracals in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park live mostly on rodents, especially springhare, but also take surprising numbers of other small carnivores, from Cape foxes to African wild cats. A few scats held sheep wool, mostly in the cold lambing season.
2004PDF available
Recent Record of a Cougar (Puma concolor) in Louisiana, with Notes on Diet, Based on Analysis of Fecal Materials
A biologist glimpsed a cougar on a road verge in southern Louisiana, where no cougar had been confirmed in decades. The next morning a park naturalist found a large scat at the spot, and its DNA confirmed the cat and showed it had eaten a domestic dog and an eastern cottontail. The authors weigh whether the animal came from a hidden swamp population, from Texas, or from captivity.
2004Publisher link
Selection of bed-sites by roe deer Capreolus capreolus fawns in an agricultural landscape
A newborn roe deer fawn survives by lying still and staying hidden, but where does it hide on a farm? On a Norwegian island, researchers radio-tracked fawns for three summers and found them bedded in every habitat, from heather moorland to hayfields and vegetable gardens, almost always invisible from a fox’s eye height. Early in the season fawns avoided the short grass of the fields; later, as the vegetation grew, they could hide almost anywhere.
2004Publisher link
Summer food of sympatric red fox and pine marten in the German Alps
Is a fox more of a generalist than a pine marten? By picking apart 119 scats collected along forest roads in the Bavarian Alps, researchers found that both ate surprising amounts of berries and beetles alongside voles, squirrels and hares. Whether they looked like specialists or generalists depended almost entirely on which index was used.
2004Publisher link
The importance of crossroads in faecal marking behaviour of the wolves (Canis lupus)
Where do wolves leave their scats? In northwest Spain, researchers searched 837 km of forest roads and found that wolves pile their scats at crossroads, especially well-connected junctions linking different parts of their territory, and often on raised objects where they are easy to see and smell. For wolves, a crossroads is a message board.
2004PDF available
Tigers and their prey: Predicting carnivore densities from prey abundance
How many tigers can a forest hold? Across 11 reserves in India, researchers walked 6,820 km counting deer, pigs and wild cattle, and set camera traps that recognised 167 tigers by their stripes. Tiger numbers closely followed a simple prediction of about one tiger for every 500 hoofed prey animals, pointing to prey loss as a main driver of tiger declines.
2004Publisher link
Use of highway undercrossings by wildlife in southern California
Do wild animals use the drainage culverts and road tunnels that already run beneath busy highways? By sifting strips of gypsum powder across 15 passages near Los Angeles and reading the tracks every month for a year, researchers recorded coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, mule deer and even a mountain lion passing beneath the traffic. Natural habitat at both ends turned out to matter as much as the size of the passage.
2004Publisher link
Why do river otters scent-mark? An experimental test of several hypotheses
What is a river otter saying when they leave spraint at a latrine? Researchers in Alaska offered wild-caught male otters a sniff of different spraints and found they cared most about the scent of other males, with dominant males the most curious of all. The results suggest otter latrines may work more like a social noticeboard for status than a “keep out” sign.
2003PDF available
A Field Guide to Texas Mountain Lions
How do you tell a mountain lion track from a big dog’s when both can be the same size? This Texas Parks and Wildlife field guide walks through lion tracks, scrapes, scats and kills, from the three-lobed heel pad to scats that show how long ago a lion last fed. It also covers aging lions by their teeth and what to do if you meet one.
2003PDF available
A Guide to Age Determination of White-tailed Deer
How old was that deer? This illustrated Texas Parks and Wildlife guide shows how to read a white-tailed deer’s age from the wear on the cheek teeth of the lower jaw, step by step from fawn to 8 1/2 years. Biologists in Texas have used the method since 1965 to manage deer herds, and the guide includes a home-made jaw spreader for a better look.
2003Publisher link
Camera trap, line transect census and track surveys: a comparative evaluation
In the grasslands of Brazil’s Emas National Park, researchers ran camera traps, roadside sighting counts and a daily track census side by side. Tracks found the most mammal species, and found them fastest, with the full list in just 12 days. Yet the authors still favoured camera traps for the long run, because track surveys depend on the ground and on experienced trackers.
2003Publisher link
Estimating the costs of locomotion in snow for coyotes
How do coyotes, animals of open, snow-free country, cope with Quebec’s deep winters? By measuring the heart rates of coyote-sized dogs walking through snow and back-tracking wild coyotes on snowshoes, researchers found that snow makes travel more costly and that coyotes cut the cost by choosing shallower, harder snow and following snowmobile trails and other animals’ tracks, especially in a harsh winter.
2003Publisher link
Extirpation and reintroduction of fishers (Martes pennanti) in Oregon: implications for their conservation in the Pacific states
Fishers once roamed the forests of Washington, Oregon and California, until fur trapping and logging wiped them out across most of the region. By piecing together trappers’ notes, release records, track-plate prints, camera photos and DNA, the authors showed that Oregon’s Cascade fishers descend from animals brought in from Canada and Minnesota to control porcupines, and that sighting reports had painted a far rosier picture than the evidence.
2003Publisher link
Gender Discrimination of Tigers by Using Their Pugmarks
Can you tell a tigress from a tiger by their tracks? Researchers in India traced the hind pugmarks of 13 tigers of known sex and found that just two measurements, length and width, sorted males from females with very high accuracy. The catch: the sample was small, with only 3 males, and every print came from a careful, standardized trail.
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.