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By ROBBY AND ALICE ROBINSON
About twenty adventurers met on January 20 at the Victory
Basin Management Area and donned snowshoes to participate
in a tracking workshop in Victory Bog led by Susan Morse of
Keeping Track. Most of the group had participated in Susan's
“Where Wild Things Walk” slide lecture sponsored
by the Northeast Kingdom Section at Lyndon Institute in December.
We learned many things as we walked single file through the
snow … not the least was to avoid being the first person
breaking trail! We would all stop and gather around Susan
as she read the forest to us or drew diagrams on the snow.
Here are some tidbits.
Half of successful tracking is knowing where to look for
animals. A change of habitat - fruit bushes changing to an
open area and then to woods - is one good example. While fruit
bushes define food areas, open areas may provide water, and
woods are a good place to be inconspicuous.
A tall substantial pine with branches low to the ground is
likely to produce a bear track. It is an ideal nurse tree
(a “day care center”) where mother can safely
leave her cubs up in the tree while she is out scouting for
food.
A rabbit with its sharp upper and lower incisors bites off
a branch at a 45° angle. A deer with only lower incisors
bites, twists and pulls at the twig, leaving a mashed cut.
A bear will mark a tree to tell other animals he is here …
helping them avoid one another, or to announce his presence
to females.
The bear climbs a tree by hugging it. His front claws go around
and make horizontal claw marks. His back paws are placed together
and pressed flat against the tree. When he descends he may
leave vertical scratches. The motto for the day was: “To
be a good tracker you must think the way a bear thinks ...
or a deer or a fisher."
After two-and-one-half hours of stopping and looking we gathered
around a welcome fire that Dana had made to eat our lunches.
Several members gathered wood and soon we had a great blaze.
After lunch we headed for our cars with many stops along the
way to look at claw marks on trees, and to learn the difference
between a fir and a spruce tree or red maple and sugar maple
leaves.
We also learned about the possibilities of becoming wildlife
monitors. The program involves seven full-day learning sessions
spread throughout the year for a group of volunteers who will
work together to monitor a selected area. Then, four times
a year, the group will select a date to spend the day recording
animal signs in this designated location. The information
from all the groups will be used to help advocate for measures
that will protect the animals of the northeast forests.
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