KAEE 50th Annual Conference

Tracking is simply reading and interpreting the movements of animals as they live their busy and secretive lives. Anybody who has spent any time in the outdoors knows that wildlife cannot be commanded to appear. However, if you know how to look, their unfiltered stories are written everywhere. Tracking is the world’s oldest scientific practice but has fallen out of practice. However, tracking is in the beginning of a resurgence as educators, conservationists, scientists, and land managers are discovering how this simple, old practice of tracking can be used to monitor the reintroduction of species, how animal behaviors change based on climate and human impact, how to best utilize technology such as camera traps, and where to route high impact human activity away from sensitive habitats, . This workshop will start with a discussion of how tracking is being used in the world of conservation, science, land management, and education. Most of our time will be devoted to looking for and interpreting the track and sign that we find as well as discussing how we can incorporate tracking into our own environmental education programs. This session will be all outdoors and we may do some off-trail walking.