TrackWise
The Journal
How to Tell a Coyote Track from a Dog Track
Coyote and dog tracks overlap enough in size to fool most people at a glance. Here's the shape, straddle, and trail-pattern evidence that actually separates them.
Reading Gait Patterns: Walk, Trot, Bound, and Gallop
The pattern a trail of tracks makes on the ground tells you as much as any single print. Here's how to read walking, trotting, bounding, and galloping gaits at a glance.
How to Make a Plaster Track Cast
A plaster cast turns a single fleeting print into a permanent, examinable record. Here's a step-by-step method for a clean pour that holds fine detail.
Deer, Elk, or Moose? Telling Ungulate Tracks Apart
All three leave a two-toed, heart-shaped hoofprint with no claw marks. Size, dewclaw placement, and habitat are what actually separate a deer track from an elk or moose track.
Scat Safety and Sign: What You Can Learn Without Touching
Scat is one of the richest sources of tracking information in the field — and one you should never handle directly. Here's what to look for, and why to keep your distance.
Setting Up Your First Trail Camera Grid
A single trail camera on a promising trail tells you something. A properly spaced grid tells you what's actually using an entire area. Here's how to plan one.
What Fossil Trackways Teach Us About How Dinosaurs Moved
Bones alone can't show you how an animal actually walked. Fossil trackways can — and the same stride-length math trackers use on fresh mud works on prints millions of years old.
Measuring a Track Properly: What Size Does and Doesn't Tell You
Length and width feel like the obvious first thing to measure on any track, and they're genuinely useful — but a small measuring mistake can flip your top match entirely. Here's how to measure correctly, and how much weight size can actually carry.
Reading Gait and Stride to Estimate How an Animal Was Moving
The same raw stride length means something completely different depending on the size of the animal that made it. Here's how to measure stride properly and turn it into an actual gait and speed, worked through with real numbers.
How Tracks Age, and Why Yesterday's Print Can Mislead You
A sharp-edged print doesn't always mean an animal just passed through — and a crumbling one doesn't always mean it's long gone. Substrate changes the clock entirely. Here's how to actually estimate a track's age, with real numbers.
Canine or Feline? Reading Claws, Symmetry, and Negative Space
A bobcat and a coyote can leave a print of almost identical length and width — and yet look nothing alike once you know where to look. Here's how claws, symmetry, and the empty space inside a print separate the two families.
Scat as Evidence: What to Observe Safely, From a Distance
Scat is some of the richest, most common sign in the field — and also the sign with a genuine disease risk attached. Here's a full worked example of reading it correctly, entirely without touching it.