Winter Animal Signs  

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Winter Animal Signs

In this session we will explore the science of tracking as a means of understanding the winter ecology of Michigan mammals. Participants will be introduced to the basic observations and measurements involved in tracking including footprints, gait, stride, and straddle. They will learn how to use these observations to identify species and how to make scientific measurements that teach principles of data collection and analysis. We will focus on generating questions on animal habitat and behavior whose answers can be deduced from tracking. Teachers will learn how to make a snow print cast of a mammal track and be introduced to the principles of track photography. In the winter, the whole world becomes a vast slate, recording movements of animals hidden to our sight in the warm months. There are many stories to unravel by making systematic observations. We think that tracking captures the essence of the scientific process.

Videos:
Animal Tracking Lecture
Requires Apple's Quicktime software.

David Tiller uses a snow hardner to make a mold of a footprint
Elizabeth Rogers and David Tiller, the instructors for the tracking session, are committed to the study of mammals through scientific observation and analysis of track and sign. In April 1999, Tiller and Rogers were among a select group of tracking practitioners convened by eminent tracking mammalogist Dr. James Halfpenny to participate as charter members in founding the International Tracking Association. Both have studied under Halfpenny and continue to explore the science of tracking through work-related and personal research projects. The corporate experience of Tiller and Rogers includes tracking surveys in national forest lands along a natural gas pipeline right-of-way from Minnesota to the northern lower peninsula of Michigan, tracking along riparian corridors of major rivers in the Upper Peninsula by hydroelectric projects, tracking surveys in managed forest stands under Mead ownership, mammal tracking surveys of tribal lands in Wisconsin and Michigan, and a mammal tracking survey of Long Island in the Apostle Islands. Both scientists presented two sessions on tracking at the 1999 annual training session of the Michigan DNR Wildlife Biologists.

 
 
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