By kai
Last month, individuals from the northeast and beyond came together under the rain-wet canopies of hemlock groves, beneath bustling bridges, and beside newly tended agricultural fields to do something all of us have come to love deeply: go tracking. What called these nineteen trackers together over the course of four days and two separate events was a Track & Sign Specialist Certification through Tracker Certification North America (TCNA).**
Certifications are one of the myriad ways that folks involve themselves with the learning, art, science, mystery, community, and passion of tracking. While standard certifications in general happen regularly throughout various parts of the world, Specialist certifications in particular are offered less frequently. Specialist certifications also draw trackers with a fairly high level of experience and dirt time in the field to continue to learn and evaluate their own accuracy with tracking.
Below are brief interviews with three people who interacted with last month’s certifications in various roles and on multiple days: Maria Wesserle, Robin Chandler, and Daniel Hansche. Their narratives may provide a window into the surprises, gifts, and challenges of the certification process, yes, but more than that I believe they offer a kind of big-hearted mosaic of connection and devotion to this thing we all love: tracking.
Reflections from Maria Wesserle
Can you describe your favorite track, sign, and/or learning from the recent certification?
My favorite sign from the certification was completely new to me and offered a treasure trove of learning! In a forested area underneath an eastern hemlock, the evaluators showed us small holes in the ground, maybe 3-4 inches in diameter. They pointed to one particular hole, cordoned off by a triangle of sticks laid on the ground, and asked who made it. I considered my options: maybe someone was digging for truffles, but I was most familiar with flying squirrels favoring that fungi, and this sign was too large for them. Maybe it was a raccoon or skunk digging for inverts? I noticed the heavy claw marks in the holes and went with striped skunk, even though the paws looked too large and it wasn’t exactly the environment I typically associate with skunk foraging. Turns out that those holes were made by porcupines digging for false truffles! This wasn’t a behavior I was familiar with, and I was delighted to learn that these large rodents search out truffles that grow in association with hemlocks in spring and fall. I’m excited to try to find some of that sign in Minnesota!
What is a growing edge for you as a tracker?
Herps are definitely something I need to study more! I already knew this going into the certification, but didn’t go out of my way to learn much about them besides some casual glances through species lists in the area. I figured I knew enough to get me through the certification; and I guess I was right, but I did miss a bonus question about identifying a desiccated eastern newt to species. I wrote down a salamander species and honestly did not even consider newts!
What was your experience of tracking and participating in a certification in a place you don’t currently live? What was exciting? What was challenging?
I truly enjoyed tracking in southern Vermont. The rolling hills, small towns, and mixed hardwood-coniferous forests reminded me of northern Michigan, which I called home for several years. As a current resident of Minneapolis, I often miss the Northwoods, so it was a joyful experience to visit for a certification. Beforehand, I worried about not being familiar enough with species that don’t live in my immediate area, such as bobcats and black bears and porcupines. Also, I am such a place-based tracker that I feared being in an unfamiliar context would throw me off. But it ended up feeling very comfortable and homey.
What does tracking at this level mean to you?
I’m definitely still processing that! I’m not sure it’s completely sunk in yet that I earned a Specialist Certificate. I still have so much to learn and every day the animals surprise me with something new. (That is, new to me—I’m sure the animals themselves are quite familiar with it!) Regardless of levels or scores, tracking to me feels like an opportunity to get to know my neighbors—the squirrels and pigeons and crows and muskrats and snapping turtles who are also at home around my home. It is one of the few practices that consistently brings me joy and amplifies feelings of connection and curiosity. It is no exaggeration to say that it is truly life sustaining and offers a much-needed anchor during such chaotic and perilous times.
What impacts and benefits do you believe a region (such as the Northeast) can gain from groups of dedicated, passionate, and highly experienced professional trackers?
The benefits of highly experienced trackers sharing their knowledge and facilitating connections with our surrounding landscapes are innumerable. Though it may initially seem like a small act, I truly believe that planting seeds of curiosity about our non-human relations grows into something much larger, like a tree with spreading limbs and deep roots dispersing their seeds to eventually form a flourishing forest. People need to exist in balanced relationships with each other and with the landscape; tracking encourages that and helps us become better neighbors. Though it may sound a bit fanciful to some, I see tracking as an inherently political act that alleviates the isolation, apathy, and environmental degradation so prevalent in our modern lives.
Reflections from Robin Chandler
Can you describe your favorite track, sign, and/or learning from the recent certification?
I always have such a hard time picking a favorite. There’s so much value in each one and they all offer a different favorite. So I’ll give a couple!
When I was very young, I decided that skunks would be my favorite animal. Since becoming a tracker, no matter how many times I find skunk tracks, I always get so excited to see them. Not only are they my favorite animal, but they are also a favorite track because they’re so readily recognizable!
I always love mustelid tracks. They’re so interesting to me because of how unique the group feels compared to other New England species. It’s so fun to sort out their gait and often when you do find their tracks they’re very messy. So it feels special to have gotten such pristine mink and otter tracks on one cert!
The woodcock scat was new to me and very interesting. I keep thinking back to that moment when Daniel and Bob counted down to announce “woodcock” at the same time. It really is such an eye-catching scat. After having learned about it during the eval, I’d like to think it will become a scat that announces itself as woodcock to me like it did for Daniel and Bob in that moment.
What is a growing edge for you as a tracker?
There was definitely some internal learning moments that came up for me during this cert. Like having patience with myself when I don’t recognize a track right away, or slowing down enough to give each track a second look when I do feel like I recognized it immediately. I also know that I have a lot of work left to do on learning invertebrate sign, but I got lucky with this cert on that front!
What does tracking at this level mean to you?
The more I learn about tracking, the more I understand that I have so much left to learn. This is a field and skill set that never stops expanding. There is so many different directions to grow in and so much value in spending time deepening your knowledge. In many ways I still feel like a beginner at this. Tracking provides so many opportunities to feel connected to the place you’re in and the people that live there. To me it’s fun, it’s grounding, and it’s necessary.
What impacts and benefits do you believe a region (such as the Northeast) can gain from groups of dedicated, passionate, and highly experienced professional trackers?
As a research technician for the state of Connecticut, I use track and sign identification daily in my work. It informs almost every aspect of what I do from trail camera and trap sets to mortality investigations or stomach contents identification. The information I gather and report is used for research that informs policy decisions for the state on many species of special concerns so it’s important that I am accurate. Not only does tracking directly benefit my work, but I also deeply believe that the skillsets that tracking requires, such as attention to detail, mental fortitude, multi-factor analysis, etc. have helped me immensely both professionally and in my personal life. Outside of my own tracking, living in an area with a growing population of trackers has also really helped our research. For example, we have reached out to trackers and trappers to get a better understanding of where we have robust fisher populations in Connecticut. They have been such a valuable resource since we have such a small research team. Their knowledge added depth and range that would have otherwise been unachievable.
Reflections from Daniel Hansche
Can you describe your favorite track, sign, and/or learning from the recent certification?
I pick my favorite versions of every track or sign found! But my favorite of all those favorites: The twig tips had been nipped out of the oaks by squirrels feeding on the flowers. We accepted either tree squirrel. Later we had the question of a squirrel scat which was much blonder than I’ve ever seen (similar to typical grouse scats in content) Later someone found many more blonde squirrel scats and it dawned on me that they were blonde because the oak flowers they’d been feeding on were yellow! When one thing clearly ties to another and gives me a feeling for how one sign informs the next, it feels pretty electric!
What is a growing edge for you as a tracker?
Helping to translate my own relaxed feeling in the field to other trackers who might find tracking to be overly intense or stressful. Allowing Tracking to relax me is a practice I really adore, and it’s sometimes a challenge to translate or convey that sense to others.
What does tracking at this level mean to you?
Something I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately is how much I love the electricity I feel in Tracking; it’s really stayed with me for 30 years. Somehow, the conduction of that electricity seems to rely equally on the fresh eyes of those who have never yet gazed at a track or sign and those who have gazed so much that they see tracks and trails in their sleep. For folks of the latter sense of experience, I feel it means returning to the field again and again with new eyes -and the best way to do that is to share that space with brand-new trackers. I can’t count how many “advanced” trackers misinterpret raccoon tracks & sign because they don’t spend enough time tracking with “beginners”. The Track & Sign Specialist Certification happens in this region for just two days each year. If you enjoy that space with folks who have hit a 99 or 100%, that’s great -but in my opinion, there should be two days and two days only for that -the very next day, get right back into the field with everyone.
A Tangentially Cautionary (and inspiring) Tale: This past weekend during my Tracking UNintensive, I had a group spanning (literally) first-day-in-the-field to Track & Sign Professional. The self-described “Newbie” asked if we could look at some holes and explore how to distinguish Mole from Vole. In the middle of a meadow. And we gladly did:) One hole was easily to describe how to interpret it as mole. This is a scenario where many people who identify as “experts” can become unengaged, yearning for something “new.” I paused and looked around, getting into it. Another hole was more challenging to distinguish. I saw some very faint scats shaped like those of vole. We looked at them for a minute and I crushed them between two flat rocks. The contents were fine sand/ dirt, and invertebrate fragments. They were MOLE scats! These moments don’t typically happen in a group of experts poking around.
What impacts and benefits do you believe a region (such as the Northeast) can gain from groups of dedicated, passionate, and highly experienced professional trackers?
Whether professional or not, dedication + passion + experience means that these trackers are Dedicated to sharing their intimate familiarity with our animal neighbors with those who are curious about animal tracking, they are Passionate enough to get out and be there in the field to see and interpret the signs of who lives there and how they live their lives, and experienced enough to recognize shifts and changes over time -to be able to communicate what they see to professionals whose work is to steward and manage wildlife. So, they ideally benefit the human and the more-than-human world. A certification can help trackers to be taken seriously by those out there who might receive a lot of bogus reports of wildlife presence. Key for me as an Evaluator is to emphasize that certifications are an excellent way to identify folks who can be highly accurate in Tracking. They are not a means to an end, not a hobby, not an academic endeavor, not a challenge sport. If you hit T&S Specialist, don’t go back again to try to “achieve” another and another, rather get back out in the field and apply and be Tracking with humans and the rest of the animal world.
**For those unfamiliar, TCNA hosts both Track and Sign, and Trailing Certifications, for “learning about local wildlife and landscapes while preserving and advancing tracking skill”. TCNA is a regional entity of CyberTracker, a now-global nonprofit formed in the 1990s “to celebrate and employ ecological knowledge of Indigenous trackers in southern Africa (namely the San of the Kalahari) in wildlife research and conservation.” (More about this history here.)
