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.
2013PDF available
The function of strategic tree selectivity in the chemical signalling of brown bears
Brown bears do not rub, bite and claw just any tree. On the coast of British Columbia, researchers found that bears chose large, less common trees along busy trails near salmon and sedge, especially resin-rich firs and spruces. They describe how to recognize a marking tree, how to tell fresh marks from old, and the stomp trails bears leave as they approach.
2013PDF available
The importance of farmland for the conservation of the brown hyaena Parahyaena brunnea
Are farms good for brown hyaenas? On commercial farmland in western Botswana, a Bushman tracker riding on the front of a vehicle counted fresh hyaena tracks while camera traps photographed individuals. Both methods found as many brown hyaenas as in protected areas, with more on cattle farms than game farms, suggesting farmland may hold 4 to 5% of the world’s brown hyaenas.
2013PDF available
Translocation and ecology of the brown hyaena (Hyaena brunnea) in the Lowveld bushveld, Limpopo, South Africa
What happens when brown hyaenas blamed for livestock losses are moved instead of killed? Five were translocated to a Limpopo reserve, collared and followed for a year. All four that could be monitored survived and settled, and one female raised three cubs, moving them through five dens. Tracks were the most common sign found where the hyaenas had been.
2013PDF available
Using shape and size to quantify variation in footprints for individual identification: case study with white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum)
Can you tell one rhino from another by their footprints? Using 961 footprint photos from 26 white rhinos on a Namibian ranch, the researchers behind WildTrack’s Footprint Identification Technique showed that footprint shape told apart all but one of 325 pairs of rhinos. Their simple size-and-shape check helps show whether a species’ footprints carry enough information to identify individuals.
2013PDF available
Utilizing a multi-technique, multi-taxa approach to monitoring wildlife passageways in southern Vermont
Do wildlife underpasses really work? On a new highway in Vermont, researchers combined marble-dust track beds, cameras, snow-tracking, live traps and road kill counts to see not only which animals used the passageways, but which crossed the road instead or turned away. Deer and mink took to the structures, coyotes mostly crossed over the road, and frogs and toads made up a large share of the road kill.
2012PDF available
A Hypothetico-Deductive Approach to Assessing the Social Function of Chemical Signalling in a Non-Territorial Solitary Carnivore
Which bears rub, claw and bite marking trees, and which only stop to sniff? Using claw marks, hair and fresh bark wounds to find 21 marking trees in British Columbia, then watching them with cameras, researchers found that adult males do most of the marking, likely to signal dominance. Mothers kept their young cubs away during the mating season, then brought them to the trees later in the year, perhaps to learn the scents of the males.
2012PDF available
An Accuracy Assessment of Global Navigation Satellite System Wildlife-Tracking Collars in the Southern Chilean Patagonia
Can wildlife collars be trusted in the rugged mountains of Torres del Paine? Kersey Lawrence (published as Kirstin Lawrence-Apfel) and colleagues tested three brands of GPS collar against survey-grade control points in Chilean Patagonia. On open ground the collars came close to the mark, but in canyons and forest they missed more positions, and a few were off by 400 to 500 m.
2012PDF available
Biomechanical Determinants of Transverse and Rotary Gallop in Cursorial Mammals
Does a galloping animal lead with feet on the same side or on opposite sides? By studying hundreds of film clips of 89 mammal species, researchers in Milan found that most species stick to one type of gallop: cheetahs, lions and leopards always use the rotary gallop, horses and zebras the transverse gallop, while dogs and wolves switch as they speed up. Body build, habitat and lifestyle all help predict which gallop an animal uses.
2012Publisher link
Burrow Dimensions of Ground Squirrels, with Special Reference to the California Ground Squirrel
How far does a ground squirrel dig? Reviewing nearly a century of measurements, researchers found that most California ground squirrel burrows are under 10 metres long, but the species also holds the records: one system ran 226 metres with 33 entrances and housed 11 adults. Bigger and more social species dig longer burrows, which matters to anyone managing squirrels on flood levees.
2012Publisher link
Complementing GPS Cluster Analysis with Activity Data for Studies of Leopard (Panthera pardus) Diet
How do you work out what a leopard eats in mountains too rugged to follow them? In South Africa’s Cederberg, researchers paired a collared female’s GPS clusters with a motion sensor in the same collar, then searched the sites for bones and hair. Rock hyraxes and klipspringers dominated her diet, and her activity at large kills showed a telltale rhythm of resting broken by bouts of feeding.
2012PDF available
Density of Large Predators on Commercial Farmland in Ghanzi, Botswana
How many cheetahs, leopards and brown hyaenas live on Botswana’s cattle and game farms? A San tracker and a biologist read fresh spoor on sand roads across the Ghanzi farmlands and found brown hyaenas far more common than assumed, and leopards much scarcer than farmers believe. The study also shows how killing predators can skew the very surveys meant to count them.
2012Publisher link
Determining the Significance of Outsole Wear Characteristics During the Forensic Examination of Footwear Impression Evidence
Can the worn patches on a shoe sole prove who left a print at a crime scene? Four forensic footwear examiners show how wear builds up, how mud, time, pressure and even the way a shoe is made can disguise it, and what 13 examiners in ten countries make of it. Their answer: wear can narrow the field, but on its own it cannot single out one shoe.
2012PDF available
Diets of desert mule deer in altered habitats in the lower Sonoran Desert
What does a desert mule deer eat when much of their range has been turned into cattle pasture? By examining plant fragments in deer and cattle dung from four ranches in Sonora, Mexico, the authors found 96 food plants, 69 never recorded for desert mule deer before. The deer lived mainly on shrubs and trees, while the introduced buffelgrass that fed the cattle barely featured in their diet.
2012PDF available
Estimating detection probability for Canada lynx Lynx canadensis using snow-track surveys in the northern Rocky Mountains, Montana, USA
How many times do you need to search the snow before you can say a lynx is not there? Driving snowmobiles along forest roads in Montana’s northern Rockies, researchers found lynx tracks in nearly every survey square where lynx were known to live. Two surveys were enough to rule lynx in or out with 95% confidence, and the results held even if many tracks had been misidentified.
2012Publisher link
Giant panda scent-marking strategies in the wild: role of season, sex and marking surface
Giant pandas are hard to see in dense bamboo, but they leave scent marks on trees along ridge trails. By checking more than 2000 trees every week for a year in China’s Foping Nature Reserve, researchers found pandas pick rough-barked, moss-free trees close to the trail for their gland marks, and the biggest, roughest trees for urine. Males marked all year, while females marked mostly in the mating season.
2012PDF available
High speed galloping in the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) and the racing greyhound (Canis familiaris): spatio-temporal and kinetic characteristics
Cheetahs and greyhounds are the same size and shape, so why is the cheetah so much faster? Filming and weighing every footfall of galloping cheetahs and greyhounds, researchers found that cheetahs take longer strides, speed up their stride rate as they go, and shift most of their weight onto their hindlegs at speed, with claws gripping the ground for every push.
2012Publisher link
Improving reliability of scat counts for abundance and distribution estimations of Lumholtz’s Tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus lumholtzi) in its rainforest habitats
Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroos are hard to see in the rainforest canopy, so researchers count their scats instead. But how old is a scat, and whose is it? This study found that scats swell in the wet, shrink in the dry, turn mouldy within days, and in the forest are often eaten by dung beetles within 24 hours.
2012PDF available
In situ Caching of a Large Mammal Carcass by a Fisher, Martes pennanti
Who covers a bear carcass with grass, needles and old moose bones? In Algonquin Park, Ontario, a trail camera revealed a male fisher scraping debris over the hindquarters of a dead black bear, and covering it again each time researchers cleared it away. The cover did not keep foxes, ravens or a marten away, but it did delay the ravens, in what appears to be the first record of a fisher caching a large carcass where it lay.
2012PDF available
Influence of Connectivity, Wild Prey and Disturbance on Occupancy of Tigers in the Human-Dominated Western Terai Arc Landscape
Walking 1166 km of sandy streambeds, forest roads and trails in northern India, a team reading tiger tracks, scats and scrapes found that a broken forest corridor has left tigers in less than a fifth of the habitat west of the Ganga, against nearly nine-tenths to the east. Their tracks and signs survey also showed how much the ground matters: tiger signs were far easier to find on sandy streambeds than on forest trails.
2012PDF available
Manual para el rastreo de mamíferos silvestres de México
How do you tell a jaguar’s track from a puma’s, or know which way a coyote’s body was turned as they trotted? This richly illustrated Spanish-language manual covers the tracks and signs of about 70 wild mammals of Mexico, from opossums and armadillos to tapirs, bears and bison. The author also argues that collections of track casts and photographs could serve as scientific records of where species live, without harming a single animal.
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.