Local opinion: The profound pleasure of Identifying wildlife track and sign

Tucson is a city rich in wildlife. Walk down any arroyo and you are likely to find the tracks of bobcats, gray foxes, coyotes, and javelina. Look more closely for the endearing miniaturization of a woodrat print. The distinct K shape left by roadrunners always strikes me as particularly aesthetic, as do the pointed arrows of quail. This is artwork on the ground! This is the profound pleasure of feeling connected to a larger nonhuman world.

I began learning how to identify wildlife track and sign more than a dozen years ago at a course offered by Sky Island Alliance, a conservation group based in Tucson. Last spring, I gave an introductory class on the tracks of mammals at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Wildlife tracking is frankly addictive.

Why are modern trackers drawn to this ancient skill? Why exclaim over the robust claw marks of a jackrabbit moving into a bound? Or the sinuous curves of a snake?

The seminal environmentalist Aldo Leopold wrote, “There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.” Maybe it’s that simple. The pleasure I get in living with wild things feels pure and uncomplicated. Moreover, in identifying track and sign, I enjoy a democratic thrill, something almost anyone can have almost anywhere, something you can take up at almost any age or physical condition. I slow down, bend down, look, and try to really see — using my imagination, my mirror neurons, my reading glasses. As people have done for a long time, I am matching marks and shape to meaning and story. Perhaps this is why books and email are so familiar.

My pleasure, obviously, is not reciprocated. The wild animals who leave their tracks do not care about me, except for the desire to be invisible. They want to wind secretly past my house while I am sleeping, past your house while you are sleeping. Because Tucson is surrounded by so much public land, Tucsonans are privileged to see more wild animals than many Americans — and in surprising places like a backyard or parking lot. But what we see is just a small percentage of the wildlife winding through these streets. Most animals, especially those nocturnal ones on their “night watch,” prefer to be unseen, unnoticed, unloved.

That’s understandable. We’ve killed so many of them already. It’s not just extinction. It’s the loss of abundance. In the past fifty years, the populations of more than five thousand species of fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals have dropped by almost 70%. Humans and our domesticated livestock now account for 96% of the weight of mammals worldwide. Wild mammals add up to 4%.

This loss of abundance is something to mourn, but it’s not the whole story. Many animal species are remarkably resilient and have learned to adapt and even flourish beside us. Although these animals do not want to engage with me, I want to engage with them. I do not want to intrude on their secret lives. But I want to name them, bobcat or mountain lion. Mule deer. Fence lizard. Pinacate beetle. I want to feel their presence.

You don’t have to become an expert. With just a bit of work and guidance, you’ll see a print in the dirt and think feline or canine and then gray fox or coyote. You’ll think raccoon. You can sometimes find tracking exhibits at Tohono Chul, the Tucson Botanical Gardens, and the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum — where you can also observe animals closely for their habits and behavior.

Perhaps, like me, you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the problems and turmoil of the human world. Identifying the track of the Western spotted skunk — known for doing handstands as a threatening posture — helps. Suddenly, you feel less alone and more aware of the life all around you. Suddenly, you have a sense of resilience.