Following several months of trips through the winter woodland, Heather Rolland once again was trekking through the snow following a path of coyote tracks. As a wildlife photographer, she was on a mission to photograph a coyote that winter.
That day, the tracks she was following were clearly made by more than one coyote as they appeared braided and chaotic, and she guessed she was tailing three individuals. While she was not able to catch up with the animals that day, or any other day that winter, she came across what she says was her “single greatest delight” on that adventure: three perfect depressions in the snow where the tracks halted and the animals laid down for a nap.
Wildlife tracking can be a hobby on its own, or a fun addition to other outdoor activities like hiking, fishing and camping. Some wildlife trackers look to follow tracks and find an animal, some are happy to simply observe tracks, and others have a favorite animal that they seek to observe through tracking.
Moe Lemire, owner and lead guide of Hike on Guides, said wildlife tracking can be used to enhance a hiking experience by making people aware of animals in the area that may be too elusive to see firsthand. He said it is also an important safety skill for wilderness enthusiasts as it can alert them to potentially dangerous animals in the area.
Lemire is a licensed guide through the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation who, along with his husband Jeff Senterman, offers guided hikes in the Catskills. Lemire said he enjoys teaching his clients about tracking and opening their eyes to the world of wildlife around them.
“When you’re hiking, animals, even if we’re super quiet, they hear our footsteps,” Lemire said. “They hear breaking branches, and, a lot of times, things are gone before you get there. The tracks kind of give you an idea of what’s out in the woods.”
Winter is the most popular season for tracking, especially for beginners, because the snow creates a fresh canvas. Rolland said going out in the winter allows her to see the world like her dogs “see” it through their keen sense of smell.
“I realized one of the things that I loved so much about the winter and the snow was that suddenly it was like I was let into the world that my dogs existed in,” Rolland said.
Lemire said he enjoys winter hikes because that is when the forest comes alive, at least to the human eye.
“You see little tracks going you’re like, ‘Hmm, is that a chipmunk? Is it a squirrel? Is it a mouse?’,” Lemire said, “and then you can follow them, and a bunch of tracks go to a tree and then they disappear. Then you look up the tree and you’re like, ‘Well, there’s a party going on up there’ because there’s tracks coming from different directions.”
Lemire said the best time for tracking in the winter is just after a fresh snow. He said that tracks can start to deteriorate even a few hours after a snowfall. Wildlife tracking can be practiced anywhere with wildlife, from a backyard to a wildlife preserve. Rolland said she recommends state parks to see a variety of tracks. She said one of the best ways for beginners to find tracks is to walk along the truck trails in the parks as many animals take advantage of the easy-to-navigate paths.
Bodies of water are often surrounded by tracks as many different animals may visit for a drink. Lemire explained that in the Catskills, animals often have to go down into the valleys for water as the clay soil in the mountains prevents water from accumulating too much at higher elevations.
He said muddy conditions along shores tend to result in clear, defined tracks, making them a popular tracking site when there is no snow. Common tracks to find around bodies of water include raccoon, muskrats and various mustelids like minks.
Wildlife trackers use a variety of observations to identify tracks, but some of the most important features to look for are the number of toes, the general shape of the track and the size of the track.
With these observations, even beginner trackers can identify many of the common Catskills tracks. Identification becomes more difficult, however, when tracks are imperfect, aged or disrupted. In this case, the pattern of the tracks can also give a clue as to what animal made them. Some animals, especially felids and canids, place their feet in a single-file line practicing a track feature known as “direct register”. A direct register is when an animal steps on its own tracks, appearing to leave only one track per two steps.
While there are many animals that perform direct register, other animals have very distinct track patterns. Rabbit tracks, for example, make a “Y” shape distinguishing them from squirrels which have a more rectangular pattern.
The pattern can also indicate what gait they were moving in and how they were moving. Were they strolling along looking for a snack or were they running from a predator? Tracks not only tell what animal passed through the area; they tell stories.
Apart from identifying animals, tracking also allows participants to “observe” wildlife activities like deer digging through the snow to forage, a muskrat meandering in and out of a river as it hunts or a few coyotes stopping for a nap.
