Tracking

A familiar NJ track - whitetail deer in the snow

There's nothing like some snowfall to get me out in the woods to do some tracking. Snow and rain make the ground easier to show tracks. But even if can see a clear track, you still have to be able to identify it.

I think of tracking as a kind of puzzle-solving. It's a great critical thinking activity for kids and adults. I used to teach a tracking class at the Pequest Trout Hatchery and Education Center and it was fun in summer or winter. 

It was also a bit stressful on one particular day when a Boy Scout group signed up for a class and one of the Scouts was the son of "The Tracker" himself, Tom Brown Jr. Tom stayed in the back, never interrupted or corrected me, and said that he enjoyed the class when we finished. 

Here's your first tracking puzzle.

The family of canids includes coyotes, foxes, dogs and wolves (which, despite rumors, don't live in the wild in NJ). Their tracks are all similar and easily confused. If you saw these two sets of tracks in your New Jersey walk, would you know which was a dog and which was a coyote?

Tracks #1  Which is the coyote and which is a dog?

There are always some clues. You look at the toe pads, the shape of the front paw pads. With dogs, you generally will see "nails" rather than "claws." What's the difference? Domestic dogs have blunt nails from floors and sidewalks while wild canids have sharp claws.

Tracks #2  Both foxes - one is red and one is gray

The gray fox overall has round semi-retractable claws with clear toe pads. The red fox has tracks that are more oval overall. The red fox claws' edges are less clear due to furry pads. The tracks may even look like those of a small coyote.

Tracks #3   Who made these?

These two you might find in your woods or in your suburban neighborhood. The one on the left has little "hands" and using them well. Notice that the tracks on the right have large front pads. And both animals have distinctively different front and rear tracks.

Answers at the bottom

Here are some books that will help you track in the woods. And Brown's tracker autobiography book is just a good read.

         

1. left = coyote, right = dog
2. red fox on right
3. left = raccoon, right = skunk