Trackers PDX Blog

We once had a bear that wandered our backyard. His trail was very familiar, like family. He's long passed, dying old and meeting his end by a local trophy hunter. David (my tracking life partner) and I were very sad. Knowing an wild animal like you would your brother or sister is not all that strange. In fact, it's fantastic. You get to experience life from an edge that our new human world always pulls you away from. This repetitive familiarity is at the heart of tracking and it's central to any…

Tracking is the art of following an animal or person and finding it. Back in the day tracking had one primary goal: feed the family. Today it plays a role in everything from naturalist education to ecological surveys. Many modern tracking schools present trailing, following and finding the animal, as a penultimate skill. They claim it is…

The other day I posted this picture on Facebook and asked what animal or animals made it. I've done blogs about tracking before. Always attached to the tale was a picture perfect print in snow, sand or mud. It struck me that in doing so, I've not properly represented the possibilities of tracking. When you first say "tracking" most folks…

Through tracking you hone your instincts while also developing a rich capacity for logic. Logic tells me what the elk may eat in winter. This is a starting point to find the herd in the places I track. Yet as I follow their trail I often rely on my gut feelings to calibrate where I continue to look. As a wise man once said, "the book of nature…

It just keeps snowing up here at the Trackers Homestead. It's a blast to so clearly see the tracks left by the residents of the Marmot Woods. Usually David and I are squinting to read a coyote trail in the hemlock needle debris or a cougar cub track across a mossy log. On these snow white days we can follow the bobcat trail with little effort.…