Kite.henley/sandbox.Reading spoor

‘Spoor’ is an Afrikaans word meaning tracks (as in "spoorlyn" which is railway tracks), and tracking is a useful skill when in the bush - looking for animals or trying to see where the rest of our patrol has gone to.

Tracking is an art that a good scout can learn by observing and interpreting signs of what has happened. The more you practice tracking the better you get.

Tracking includes footprints found on the ground or by disturbed vegetation, and while tracking you should use all of your senses - .

• Sight - look at the prints and the flattened grass, where an animal slept. Humans often leave behind bits of litter like orange peels or worse plastic water bottles.
• Sound - listen for breaking sticks, or the calls of alarmed birds or antelope. Humans talking can be heard some distance at night.
• Smell - be aware of the smells of the bush, the animals and humans (perfume, cigarettes and cooking fires).

Markings on the ground

Markings on the ground are made by:

• Animal territory marking, urine and droppings (sometimes forming a dung midden),
• Insects walking along the sand - a millipede or a line of ants.
• Leaves and twigs rolling in the wind, long grass sweeping the ground.
• Displaced stones or logs.
• Humans using walking sticks, bicycle tyre tracks

The spoor varies with terrain (sandy or stony), weather conditions, time of day and how long ago the spoor was produced.

True Scouts are the best friends of animals, for from living in the woods and wilds, and practising observation and tracking, they get to know more than other people about the ways and habits of birds and animals, and therefore they understand them and are more in sympathy with them. Robert Baden-Powell

Tracking animals

Footprints

Looking at individual footprints can already tell us something about our quarry.

• Larger footprints mean a larger animal (or a larger human)

• With animals the front paws (or hooves) carry the weight of the head - and so the front paws are larger than the hind paws (or hooves).

The distance between the footprints (the stride) tells us about the length of the leg - this is useful for estimating if the size of the antelope or even a cat.

Humans

When tracking people we will take note of the shoe prints

• Larger shoes mean ... taller people. (Children have smaller feet)
• Gait - gaps between the foot prints give clues to

• Height: with a walking human track you can estimate the height of the hips by measuring the distance between the same foot (i.e. distance from left footprint to left footprint)
• Speed of movement - when running your steps are further apart.

• Dragging of a foot - might tell us about an injury or a limp.

Padded animals

When looking at the spoor of padded feet - we need to look for

• Claw marks,

• Generally the cats show no claws in their spoor (the cheetah is an exception),
• Dogs, hyenas, ratels and porcupines have claw marks

Hoofs

• Younger animals have sharper more defined hooves than older animals
• Is the hoof a

• "rim-walker" like a steenbok and the impala
• "flat-footed" like a klip-springer or the eland

Order of events

The animals that arrived later will walk over the spoor of the earlier visitors.

Ask yourself questions when looking at the spoor,

• Did the rain happen after the animal walked down the path, or did the animal walk across the soil after the rain. and if we noticed the time of the rain, this could tell us how long ago the animal passed.
• Is the spoor of the stalking leopard covering over some of the prints of the prey, or did the prey cross over the path of the leopard?

These answers give us an idea of how old the spoor is.

• With old spoor we can move faster to try catch up,
• With fresh spoor we need to move with more caution and need to rely on more of our other senses, looking further ahead in the bush and listening for breaking vegetation and bird alarm calls.

See Also

• Trail signs - used to leave a deliberate trail for other scouts or rescuers to follow

Extra Reading

• Africafreak.com/animal-tracks - a good practical article with photos. Check the cheetah spoor on top of the car tyre tracks, giving the order of events.