From far-flung hiking trails to suburban front lawns, animals often leave behind telltale signs of their passing. An ability to read them can not only impress your friends, it just might save your hide too (as in: There's a fresh grizzly print here and a cub's there. Let's back away slowly).
The key to distinguishing a dangerous predator from a house pet, however, is all in the weight of the evidence. "Stop. Scan. Look high and look low," says ace tracker Jim Bruchac, co-author of the Scats and Tracks series (Falcon, $10). This motto helped him sleuth out clues in the yard of a home on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado. "Actually, I spotted a handwritten sign that read: 'A Mountain Lion Ate a Deer Here Yesterday.' But sure enough, up a dirt road from this family's house was the best and freshest mountain lion track I'd ever seen." Most of the time the clues will be far more subtle. But if you know how to read between the lines—on the trail or in your neighborhood—you can figure out what wild things recently walked this way.
TELLING THE USUAL SUSPECTS FROM THE UNUSUAL:
Mountain Lion (Puma Concolor)Clue: Look for four teardrop-shaped toe pads above a trilobed heel and two center toes unequally aligned.
Claw marks are usually not visible.
Grizzly Bear (Ursus Arctos Horribilis)
Clue: There will be five toe pads in a slight arc above an inverted-triangle-shaped heel pad (rear paw shown). Long claw marks are often visible.
Golden Retriever (Canis Familiaris)
Clue: You'll see four oval toe pads, with the two center toes equally aligned, above a bilobed heel pad. Claw marks are usually visible.
CORE KNOWLEDGE:
Spot It
Is the print from a hoofed or toed animal? "A hoof," says Jim Bruchac, "is divided into clouts and dewclaws instead of toes and pads." As suburbs expand, residents should learn to tell the difference between predators and prey.
Sniff It
If there's a print, there may be scat nearby. "Size, shape, contents, and even smell are good clues," Bruchac says. "Carnivores leave elongated scat with a pungent smell and lots of hair and bones inside."
Size It
A single track is helpful, but a trail reveals what the animal was doing and, critically, its stride. "Measure the distance between the front and rear foot on the same side and double it. A walking animal's stride is a bit longer than its hip-to-shoulder length." If the rear feet are landing just behind, ahead, or right on top of the front prints, your critter was probably on the run.
IN THE FIELD:
Feral Forensics 101
Bruchac runs introductory classes ($50 a day; www.ndcenter.org) out of the Ndakinna Education Center in Greenfield Center, New York. Renowned wolf and bear tracker Jim Halfpenny, Ph.D., offers weekend courses ($225; www.tracknature.com) in Yellowstone National Park.
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