What is THAT? San Diego Tracking Team

This past weekend I was invited to take a course in animal tracking at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. The invitation was a result of my volunteer activities, and was paid for by the park’s supporting foundation, CRSPIA.

The class was conducted by members of the San Diego Tracking Team. SDTT is an association of animal trackers, who use their particular skills to educate, collect data, and get more people outdoors.

Prior to the class, the trackers spent a good part of the morning, setting up stations around the park’s visitor center, where they’d found animals signs; like tracks, scat, or plants animals had been browsing on. The visitor center is where we begin and end our volunteer hikes, have meetings, and where the park store is. Obviously, there are animals in Cuyamaca State Park, but the amount, and variety of signs they found within a few yards the VC was pretty impressive. Earlier in spring, I wrote about how many different wildflowers you see when you just stop and look. Well, that goes double for animal signs. Amongst all the bootprints, bike-tire prints, and horseshoe prints, SDTT was able to find everything from bobcat, and deer, to lizard, beetle, and antlion tracks.

First, however, we were given a Power Point presentation on the basics of tracking. They taught us basic terms, and showed us characteristics of common local species. How to easily differentiate between feline and canine tracks. Which reminds me, there are a lot more mammal species living in our hills, and canyons than I ever knew about. San Diego is a very diverse county, and not just in plant life. Another important tracking tool is scat identification, which is an art in itself. You’d be surprised at how useful a tool poop is in species identification. For instance, you can tell the sex of a wild turkey, by the shape of its scat. Yep, a male wild turkey poops in the shape of a “J,” while the female leaves a patty-shaped scat. Interesting, huh? I’d honestly been wondering recently, why bird poop almost always has white in it. Well, it’s because birds, and reptiles, only have one orifice for excreting waste materials, and the white is uric acid.

The stations the team set up were to educate us on identification, teach us how to determine direction, and gait, and even size of an individual animal. It’s not always easy either. Some animals step on their own tracks, sometimes directly, others offset, making discerning heel pads from toe pads difficult, or impossible. I was very impressed with the San Diego Tracking Team, and the pool of knowledge they brought to share with us.

It is seriously amazing what you can see if you just look. I’ll still power through some hikes for the exercise, but I’ll also be hiking to see what’s been there just before me on occasion. I’m not sure that I’ll delve too deeply into the world of tracking, but I’d like to get better at IDing the common tracks, and scat, in the park. It all goes back to What is THAT?, enhancing your outdoor experience by becoming familiar with the plants, animals, and even the animal signs you encounter while out on the trail. Thanks, SDTT for the great class, and thanks CRSPIA for inviting me.

I don’t want to repeat too much that you can read on SDTT’s very informative website, but I’ll tell you their data has been accepted for use by California Fish & Game and US Fish & Wildlife for use in habitat studies, and wildlife corridor management. I’ll also tell you they lead free tracking walks on Saturday mornings at Mission Trails; their headquarters. Check their calendar. Maybe I’ll see you out there sometime.