This weekend was a lot of fun! I got to do something that I haven't done since I was 13. I got to walk through the woods alone to hunt! There is something very soothing to me about being in the wilderness, being as quiet as possible, and looking for animal sign. I don't know what it is but it allows me to turn off all of my thoughts and tune into my senses and do what humans are built for. HUNTING! What also made it exciting was that there were tons of animal sign. I was on the hunt for wild hog and I saw a whole lot of this:
There were hog tracks every where, and they were fresh too! I managed to walk some of the property Friday evening and when I returned Sunday morning I found a whole lot of new sign which just makes me want to spend more time in the woods. The only down side was that instead of sitting still, I walked, and on my way back to the truck I could see all kinds of piglet tracks inside of the boot print that I had made just a few hours earlier. Since it was sprinkling a bit and the ground was soft it was very easy to see new tracks over ones a few hours old.
This trip also got me to thinking. How many folks out there have ever tried to track an animal? Outside of the hunters I'd imagine very few. I mean, why would you? Follow the GPS to the grocery store in today's society and there is all the food you need. Why track it on the hoof? What if the grocery store wasn't there and you had to track a critter so you could eat? How would you be able to tell old tracks from new ones? Lets talk about why I was so excited by the pic above and what it tells us as trackers.
Well, first of all this track is very fresh. Notice how the dirt at the top of the hoof print appears freshly turned up. The dirt has not had time to settle back to the ground. There is a lot of air space in the soil. Also notice how there is still water in the bottom of the track. This also tells me that it is fresh sign. Think about what happens when you walk across wet ground. The second you pick your foot up, the water that was pressed from the soil under the pressure of your weight will pool in the lowest part of the print. Notice above that some of this water is still left in this track. It hasn't had time to soak back into the soil. The track also tells me that, most likely, the animal was in a bit of a hurry. The hoof prints are very close together which indicates a faster gait, and it even appears that the top track, ever so slightly, drug the top of the soil before the animal planted to continue the gallop. I probably only missed this animal by 20 to 30 minutes. This irritated me because I got into the woods about an hour later than I wanted. That's ok though. Now I know what time this little piggy gets up for breakfast and I'll be waiting on him this weekend.
As a type of homework assignment, I'd like for everyone to try to get outside and see if you could track an animal. It doesn't matter if it's your dog, just give it a shot. Try to get some place quiet where you can look and listen with no distractions. I think you'll be surprised at what you might know. We as humans are predators by nature. Whether you like it or not, we know how to hunt and survive some where in that primal area of our brain. The problem is that many of us never use that area so we think it doesn't exist. The goal here is not to learn to survive like animals but to learn to stand up and survive like humans!
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