Tracking (hunting)

science and art of observing animal tracks

Tracking in hunting and ecology is the science and art of observing animal tracks and other signs, with the goal of gaining understanding of the landscape and the animal being tracked.

Bear tracks in Superior National Forest.
feral cat tracks.

History

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It has been suggested that the art of tracking may have been the first implementation of science, practiced by hunter-gatherers since the evolution of modern humans.[1][2][3][4][5]

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References

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  1. Liebenberg, L.W. (1990). The Art of Tracking: The Origin of Science. Cape Town: David Philip.
  2. Liebenberg, L.W. (2006) Persistence hunting by modern hunter-gatherers. Curr. Anthropol. 47, 1017-1025.
  3. Carruthers, P. (2002) The roots of scientific reasoning: infancy, modularity and the art of tracking, In: Carruthers, P., Stich, S., Siegal, M., (Eds.), The Cognitive Basis of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  4. Carruthers, P. (2006) The Architecture of the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  5. Pickering, T.R., Bunn, H.T. (2007) The endurance running hypothesis and hunting and scavenging in savanna-woodlands. J. Hum. Evol. 53, 434-438.

Other websites

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