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.
2014PDF available
Using occupancy analysis to validate the use of footprint tunnels as a method for monitoring the hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus
Can a plastic tunnel, a sausage and some ink tell you whether hedgehogs live nearby? Volunteers set footprint tunnels at 111 sites across the UK, and occupancy analysis showed the tunnels almost never missed hedgehogs that were there: four nights were enough to be confident of an absence. Hedgehogs were also about half as likely to be found where badgers lived.
2013PDF available
Backcountry Tactics and Tracking Training Program
How do police find a suspect who has fled into the backcountry, or a missing child in wind and rain? Two instructors describe a one-week U.S. federal course that teaches officers to read footprints and stride, work out how many people fled a scene, and follow a trail as a protected team, by day and at night. “You will never look at the ground the same after this class.”
2013PDF available
Call of duty? Variation in use of the watchman’s song by sentinel dwarf mongooses, Helogale parvula
When dwarf mongooses forage, one stands guard on a raised spot and often gives a soft “watchman’s song”. A study in South Africa’s Limpopo lowveld found that sentinels call more in thick bush and when the group is spread out, and slow their calling when danger is high. After an alarm, the song seems to tell the group it is safe to carry on.
2013PDF available
Common Tracks of Southeast Alaska: A Naturalist’s Guide to Our Most “Trackable” Mammals and Birds: Where to Find Them and How to Read Their Sign
Found a five-toed print on a muddy stream bank near Sitka? In this pocket guide, naturalist Richard Carstensen shows how four simple questions, a few gait patterns and a regional distribution table can narrow down who made it. Written for teachers and students in Southeast Alaska, it also makes the case that tracking may be the most respectful way to get to know wildlife.
2013Publisher link
Evaluating Hualapai Cultural Resources Along the Colorado River, May and August 2012
Every year, Hualapai Elders, youth and specialists travel down the Colorado River to check on the places in the Grand Canyon that matter most to their people. In 2012 they visited 24 sacred and cultural sites and found that visitors’ trails, graffiti and moved artifacts were doing more damage than floods or dam releases. Their report shows how Traditional Ecological Knowledge can sit alongside photo records and plant transects in caring for a landscape.
2013Publisher link
Factors affecting the (in)accuracy of mammalian mesocarnivore scat identification in South-western Europe
How often is a scat identified by eye really from the animal we think? In Portugal and Spain, DNA tests showed that scats called red fox were right 86% of the time, but scats called wildcat were right only 12% of the time, and most were actually fox. The authors argue that every scat survey should check its own error rate.
2013PDF available
Humans Running at Stadiums and Beaches and the Accuracy of Speed Estimations from Fossil Trackways
How fast was someone moving when they left a trail of footprints 20,000 years ago? By comparing world-class sprinters with students walking and running on a Spanish beach, two palaeontologists showed that speed can usually be read from stride length to within 10 to 15%. Their equation slowed down an ancient Australian “sprinter” from Olympic pace to a still impressive but more believable run.
2013PDF available
Identifying endangered species from footprints
Can a photo of a footprint tell you which tiger made it? Inspired by expert trackers in Africa, the founders of WildTrack built the footprint identification technique (FIT), which measures more than 120 features of each footprint to identify species, individuals, sex and age-class, with accuracy above 90%. This short article explains how it works, from Amur tigers in China’s snow to rhinos, cheetahs and polar bears.
2013PDF available
Livestock Injury and Mortality Investigations: A Reference Guide for WDFW Field Personnel
When a calf is found dead, was it a wolf, a bear, a cougar, a dog, or no predator at all? This Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife field guide shows how investigators read the tracks and signs at the site and on the carcass, from round cat tracks and scraped-up caches to hidden bite bruises under the hide. Its most honest advice: when the evidence is not there, “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer.
2013PDF available
Locomotion dynamics of hunting in wild cheetahs
How fast does a wild cheetah really run when hunting? Custom GPS and motion-sensor collars on five cheetahs in Botswana recorded a top speed of 93 km per hour, but most hunts were run at moderate speeds. The real secret was braking, power and grip: cheetahs slowed hard before turning sharply, and successful hunts were decided in those final moments.
2013Publisher link
Mapping behavioral landscapes for animal movement: a finite mixture modeling approach
How does a bobcat move when it meets a city? GPS data from three bobcats in southern California showed that, as urban land increased, they turned away from it or travelled along its edge. Mapping these choices produced a “behavioural landscape” showing which corridors a bobcat is likely to use.
2013PDF available
Nuisance Ecology: Do Scavenging Condors Exact Foraging Costs on Pumas in Patagonia?
Can a bird make a puma nervous? In Chilean Patagonia, certified trackers checked over 400 puma kills and found that pumas left half of their large kills after a single night, especially in open grassland where Andean condors gather. Pumas spent less time at kills where condors came, killed about 50% more meat per day than pumas in North America, and still hunted most in the risky open country where prey was plentiful.
2013Publisher link
Sign and the Art of Tracking: A Guide to Support Law Enforcement Tracking and Anti-Poaching Operations
How do you follow a poacher who walks backwards, changes shoes or wades down a stream? This field guide from INTERPOL and UNEP/GRID-Arendal teaches rangers and police to read and age sign, protect crime scenes and see through about 35 counter tracking tricks. Its message is that tracking is a learnable skill, not a mystery, and one of the most efficient tools in anti-poaching work.
2013Publisher link
Study of the Distribution of Mustelids over the Southern Urals Using Noninvasive Methods
How do you find out where secretive weasels, martens and mink live without ever catching one? Walking the banks of 45 rivers in Russia’s Southern Urals, researchers read footprints and scats, checked their scat identifications with DNA, and set camera traps. The introduced American mink turned out to be everywhere, and in a drought year several species shared one riverbank by visiting at different times of day.
2013Publisher link
Substrate Attributes Determine Gait in a Terrestrial Gastropod
Ever seen a snail trail on a sidewalk that looks like a dotted line? Garden snails in California switch from smooth crawling to “loping”, arching their foot and leaving a broken mucus trail, on rough, absorbent surfaces like concrete and wood, but never on glass or acrylic. Loping turned out to be no faster, but it saves costly mucus, and it may be far more common in nature than anyone thought.
2013Publisher link
Substrate selection for urine spraying in captive wildcats
Do wildcats care which bush they spray? At a breeding centre in Catalonia, Spain, captive wildcats sprayed every single common juniper in their enclosures but ignored most other plants, regardless of size or shape. The authors suggest the cats may be picking juniper for its aromatic chemistry, which could help their scent messages last longer.
2013Publisher link
The Comprehensive Guide to Tracking Skills: How to Track Animals and Humans by Using All the Senses and Logical Reasoning
Can you follow an elephant by smell alone? Former ranger Cleve Cheney once did, for two kilometres. His practical guide argues that tracking means using every sense and sound reasoning, and walks readers through the many signs animals and people leave, from scat and wallows to the alarm calls of birds.
2013PDF available
The Implications of Habitat Management on the Population Viability of the Endangered Ohlone Tiger Beetle (Cicindela ohlone) Metapopulation
The endangered Ohlone tiger beetle survives in just five patches of coastal prairie in California. By reading the size and state of larval burrows and the exit holes of emerging adults, researchers followed the beetles through their life cycle for three years. Their models show that more bare ground and slower cyclists could keep four of the five populations growing.
2013Publisher link
The Origin of Science: The Evolutionary Roots of Scientific Reasoning and its Implications for Citizen Science
How did the human mind become able to do science? In this free book, Louis Liebenberg draws on decades of tracking with Kalahari hunters, including a kudu chase that nearly killed him, to argue that reading tracks and signs, and predicting where a trail will lead, uses the same reasoning as modern physics. He also traces how certified trackers and CyberTracker are bringing that ancient science into modern conservation.
2013PDF available
The effects of puma prey selection and specialization on less abundant prey in Patagonia
Scat studies said Patagonian pumas lived on hares. When certified trackers checked 694 GPS clusters left by 9 collared pumas in Chile, they found mostly guanacos, and hares made up less than 2% of the meat eaten. The real surprise was individuals: just 2 pumas drove most sheep kills, and 2 others selected the endangered huemul deer.
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.