Track identification important for any outdoors(wo)man
By Skye Goode
I see it all the time on social media, “What track is this?” Track identification is a hobby of mine because it is one of the only sure things when it comes to scouting for animals. Tracks cannot appear out of nowhere; an animal must have walked by to make that track, and chances are, they will walk by again. If you are a trapper, you know the oldest word of advice is, “Set on sign.” All sportsmen, whether you turkey hunt, deer hunt, run hounds or trap, rely on animal tracks to up the odds that they will harvest that animal.
Canines
The most commonly misidentified track is someone thinking the neighbor’s black lab is a wolf running through their back yard. I’ll agree that wolf/dog/canine tracks can be very difficult even for the seasoned outdoorsman. The main points to look at for canine tracks are toenail marks, bottom of the pad only having two lobes and the gait.
Domestic dogs will have a circular pattern to the overall track and the toes tend to spread out very wide. Usually they will have very long toenail marks because they don’t get wore down on the rocks like wild canines. On the other hand, wild canines such as fox and coyote will have an oval-shaped track, show just small toenail indents and the toes will not spread out, but rather be streamline. If you think of it in terms of evolution, our domestic dogs no longer need to hunt for their food, so their feet are not conditioned to the terrain. If a coyote or fox’s toes spread out wide, they would never be able to keep up with prey and be successful hunters.
The difference in a coyote and a wolf track is only their size, as even a wolf pup will be twice the size of an adult coyote. The gait on a wild canine compared to a domestic will look very different as well. Wild canines are built so their shoulders are the same width as their hips, therefore, their hind track will fall almost perfectly in line with their front track whether they are running or walking. However, domestic dogs come in all shapes and sizes, and tend to show all four tracks in a rectangular pattern within each stride. Wild canines also run in straight lines, often with a destination in mind, whereas domestic dogs meander all over the place and seem “clumsy” in their travel.
Felines
Another animal you may see tracks from is a bobcat. The main points to determine a feline track are: they do not show toenail marks because their claws are retracted, the bottom of their pad has three lobes and their track is almost perfectly round. The average bobcat track will be twice the size of even the biggest feral tomcat, though the two tracks look almost identical. The back feet will fall in line with the front feet almost exactly, so it can appear the cat has only two feet!
Recently, a mountain lion walked through my hometown and the tracks were unmistakable; I would estimate the mountain lion tracks were nearly three times the size of the biggest bobcat I’ve ever seen. When I get asked if a track is of a wolf or a cougar, I usually tell them, “If you must ask, then it isn’t. When you see one, you’ll know!”
More Animals
Other critter tracks you may commonly encounter are fisher, who show all five toes as well as all four feet; otter, who show all five toes with slight webbing and tend to have slides accompanied between their tracks; raccoon, who will look almost exactly like a human hand and are side by side with back feet disappearing into front feet; skunk, which look like a very tiny bear track and are just a couple inches apart, and possums, which look like a coon track but their big thumbs stick out the side. Black bear tracks are very recognizable and will look like a human footprint with claws!
Water animals such as mink, muskrat and ducks/geese are easy to identify when near water as well, due to the low number of species that will be in the water and on the muddy banks. Due to process of elimination, you can decipher what species would be down in the water and which would not.
Small game tracks can be difficult for some people to identify due to there often being so many tracks overlapping each other. Squirrels tend to have a “square” appearance between all four paws and their tracks will always lead to a tree. Rabbits tend to have the back two feet in line with each other and the front two feet will be side by side, and in snow, they rarely leave their trails. Mice, weasels and other small rodents will leave little tiny dots in the snow – making out any paws or toes is nearly impossible.
More to Learn
The conditions of the terrain you are looking in can make identifying tracks very difficult. “Snowman” snow is the best type of snow you can see clear tracks in, but “sugary” snow makes it almost impossible. Mud is a great terrain to see all sorts of important details, yet sand hides all those clear features.
Once you have practiced tracking enough to identify all species, you can eventually get in the habit of identifying male from female in some species. For turkeys, a tom will have much bigger feet, sink in deeper at the toes due to its weight being forward, and in the spring, will show strut marks from their wings and the tracks might even go in circles. Pay special attention to tracks showing clear segmentation between the toe joints, as it takes a heavy bird to push a foot that deeply into the soil. This could be an especially mature tom. You may even be able to see beard dragging and spurs marks. However, hens are much smaller, their weight is distributed evenly and they walk in a straight line most of the time. You can also use tracks to determine flock size, as well as if hens, toms or both were in the flock.
Pheasant tracks will be similar to turkeys, but smaller, with males also possibly leaving spur marks. Sometimes, you will find wing/feather markings and can determine if the bird was taking flight or landing.
With whitetail, a doe tends to have more weight in the hips and a buck has more weight at the shoulders, much like humans, so the weight distribution will show in the track along with the size and gait.
When taking photos of tracks to possibly ask an expert or post online about identifying a track, there are two very important things to remember: include a size reference and show the entire gait. An extreme close-up of a single track with nothing in the photo for size can make it very difficult to identify since coyote, fox and wolf tracks are nearly identical except for size. Include a tape measure, pocketknife, water bottle, money, car keys or your hand/boot in the photo to show the size. The gait of the animal is important too because it shows where the back feet land in line with the front feet, the length of the stride, and if the animal is running, walking, loping or waddling.
Identifying tracks is a skill that will be of use to any outdoorsman in so many ways. Before trail cameras, tracking was the only way to tell if an animal had been in the area. As a kid, we used to measure bear tracks around bear baits to tell if there were ones mature enough to be harvested. Today, we identify them by trail cam pictures, which makes the fine skill of tracking more of a lost tool. However, each track tells a story and freezes a moment in time when an animal was just being itself in the wild, and we can read these little moments each time we go outside.
~ Skye Goode of Wisconsin
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