Tracking Wildlife Through Winter Traces

On February 29, iNaturalist.ca, the Canadian Wildlife Federation, and Wintergreen Studios hosted an online presentation entitled Winter Wildlife Tracks & Traces.

Presenter Hilbert Buist, a guide with Wintergreen Studios, talked about sharing photos of wildlife tracks on the iNaturalist network to add valuable data to conservation research.

A new project on wildlife tracks in Canada is available at https://inaturalist.ca/projects/Canadian-wildlife-tracks-and-traces where citizen scientists can not only record observations and get help identifying tracks but also receive project updates about interesting finds and resources.

Buist emphasized that people don’t need to be an expert to provide significant data, saying, “If you can take a photo, you can contribute to conservation.” Both the iNaturalist website and mobile app incorporate image recognition software, and other users can help identify and confirm species. The better the photo, the better the chance to identify it will be.

To ensure tracks are tagged appropriately in iNaturalist after adding an entry, go to Your Observations, then to Annotations and select the Evidence of Presence drop-down menu to select Track. This will automatically pull the observation into the tracking project, allowing other professional and amateur naturalists involved in the project to see your data.

Buist explained that animals are residents who belong in their environments year-round, and in winter, they have three main tasks: to eat, stay warm, and find safety. When we find tracks, we have the opportunity to discover what animals eat, where they find warmth, and how the stay safe.

Buist advises carrying a ruler or measuring tape on hikes and to look for the front foot (width x length), hind food, trail width, and stride length to begin to accurately identify tracks.

The way an animal moves determines the tracks it leaves. There are four basic gait patters: waddlers, walkers, bounders, and hoppers.

Walkers are the largest group of animals; they have long bodies with a large head and chest and long legs. They must move two legs at a time but from opposite sides of their bodies. The hind foot steps into the same place where the front has just left. Cats, dogs, wolves, fox, deer, and muskrat all fall into this category. Boist contrasted the meandering tracks of domestic dogs and cats with the more businesslike movement of wild animals who don’t know where their next meal is going to come from.

The second category is bounders: long-bodied animals with short legs who move quickly in short leaps. Their prints show a series of pairs of paw prints more or less side by side. Bounders include fishers, otters, weasels, mink, ermine, and martin.

Hoppers are animals who register all four feet in the snow as a group, including rabbits, hares, and most rodents.

Finally, waddlers move in an overstep pattern: they lift both feet on same side of the body before moving the other side. Bears, porcupines, raccoons, and badgers are all waddlers.

Buist encourages people to stretch their tracking muscles by exploring tracks in their neighbourhood and following them; once you get to a place where you can follow no more, go back and explore in the other direction. He also recommends trying to move like various animals, even getting down on all fours, to see the effects of various types of movement in the snow.

To watch Buist’s presentation in its entirety, visit https://cwf-fcf.org/en/resources/downloads/webinars/public/winter-wildlife-tracks.html