The Complete Tracker: The Tracks, Signs, and Habits of North American Wildlife

1. What they did

Len McDougall wrote this book to help readers, whatever their experience, become competent at finding and watching wild animals in their natural surroundings. He argues that tracking is “pure mechanics, not magic”: what accomplished trackers share is a solid knowledge of the animals they follow, their seasonal habitats, foods and habits.

The book has two parts:

• Tracking tools and methods (five chapters). Track identification, reading sign, tracking tools, stalking, and observing wildlife from blinds.
• Tracking mammals (fifteen chapters). Accounts of about 32 North American mammals, grouped by family, from deer, elk and moose to bears, wild dogs, wild cats, weasels, beaver, porcupine, hares, squirrels and muskrat. Each account covers habitat and range (with a range map), foods, mating habits, seasonal habits, tracks (with drawings, sizes, stride and straddle), scat, other sign and vocalizations.

The book draws on the author’s own experience, much of it in northern Michigan. It gives no references.

2. What they found

Tracks and track media

• Tracks first point to an animal’s family (for example by the number of toes), and the species can then be narrowed down with a reference.
• Wet sand, clay and mud along lakes and streams are the best media: a careful look at a muddy bank can give a list of almost every species within a mile or more. Dry sand often leaves only bowl-shaped dents.
• Wet snow near freezing gives clear prints, but melting snow enlarges tracks, which the author links to reports of “giant” tracks.
• In grass and leaf litter, tracking means looking for small disturbances that could not have happened naturally. Grass pushed aside by a passing animal can stay visible for half a day, especially with morning dew.
• On rock, faint scrape marks can be followed; on roads, the gravel shoulders show where an animal crossed, and wet feet can leave a “negative print” on asphalt.
• When tracks are unclear, stride, straddle and gait help identify the species. These measurements are given in each species account (for example, a walking bobcat’s straddle is 6 to 7 inches and stride 16 to 18 inches).
• The author estimates weight by pressing his own heel (for hoofed animals) or the ball of his foot (for pawed animals) beside a track and comparing depths.
• A trail never simply disappears: if you find one track of an animal that cannot fly, there must be more.

Ageing tracks and scat

• Temperature and humidity most affect how tracks age. Grass pressed flat by a bear begins to rise again after about an hour, and a day later only a few broken, yellowed stems remain.
• Rules of thumb for scat: warm to the back of the hand, under an hour old; cold but wet, under 5 hours; dry outside and moist inside, 6 to 24 hours; dry throughout but still dark, one to three days; white and crumbly, at least four days. These become less precise with time and in hard rain or snow.
• Sweeping a patch of sand clean where animals pass regularly, and checking it morning and afternoon, can show an animal’s timetable within a day or so.

Reading sign

• Food plants and habitat are the most important clues to where a species lives.
• Scat, urine and musk serve as territorial markers. The author reports that predators (coyotes, bobcats, lynx and black bears) often leave scat on prey remains that have been picked clean, but never on cached, partly eaten kills.
• Other sign described includes scent posts (such as beaver scent mounds), deer scrapes, bear claw marks on trees and buildings, bobcat scratching posts, red squirrel feeding stations, animal trails shared by many species, and beds and dens.

Tools, stalking and observing

• Chapters cover scent neutralizers and cover scents, sex and food scents, salt and mineral licks, game calls, binoculars and spotting scopes, triplines and electronic trail timers (some able to trigger a camera), and handheld heat detectors.
• Stalking relies on camouflage that breaks up the human outline (including homemade ghillie suits), soft-soled boots, very slow movement, and always moving into the wind.
• Blinds should be at least 100 feet from the area watched; permanent blinds should be built at least 30 days before use, because animals avoid new structures for about a month.

Species accounts

Each account gives the author’s description of the animal’s range, diet, breeding, seasonal movements, tracks, scat, sign and calls. For example, he describes bobcats hunting mostly at night along established trails such as deer trails, marking them with urine, claw marks and scat, and scratching scat over from all directions (unlike pumas, whose scratches he says point away from the direction of travel).

3. What they concluded

• Finding and following any animal is a learnable skill, not a mystery. It rests on knowing the animal’s habitat, foods and habits, and on patience: the most common reason for losing a trail is a lack of patience.
• A tracker is a detective, gathering facts from small details and putting them together into a picture of what happened.
• Knowing where and when an animal travels lets an observer, photographer or hunter wait for it rather than chase it.

4. How tracking was or was not used

The whole book is about tracking. It teaches tracks and signs identification (footprints, scat, urine scent posts, claw marks, feeding signs, beds, dens and trails), ageing tracks and scat, using gait, stride and straddle, and trailing animals across different ground, including where a trail seems to disappear. It also covers using tracks and signs to work out an animal’s daily timetable so it can be watched or photographed.

5. Tracker or observer certification

Reported but not validated. The book rests on the author’s own experience as a tracker and outdoorsman; no certification or test of his tracking skill is given.

6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

• Swept “litmus fields” and thread or fishing-line triplines across trails to time animal visits.
• Electronic trail timers (Trail Timer, Trail Timer Plus and TrailMaster 500), some of which can trigger a 35 mm camera.
• Handheld infrared heat detectors (Game Finder) for finding bedded animals by body heat.
• Scent neutralizers, cover scents and lures; game calls; binoculars and spotting scopes; homemade ghillie suits; portable blinds.

7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

• The author notes that predators such as timber wolves and lynx have not kept pace with their prey near people, because the prey will live close to humans and the predators will not.
• He suggests that road-killed prey can hint at which predators are present or absent (for example, many dead porcupines on roads suggesting fishers are absent).
• He reminds readers that some states restrict baiting, salt licks and recorded calls, and to check local rules.