Wildlife Tracking and Trailing
Wildlife Tracking & Trailing: greeting the world with curiosity
Being a Tracker is so much more than just looking at tracks on the ground. It is about understanding and interpreting animal behavior, developing empathy for the more-than-human world, and embedding ourselves within the story of the living landscape. Wildlife tracking invites us to slow down, expand our sensory perception, and notice and greet the world with curiosity, wonder and awe.
“Tracking, it turns out, is nothing less than a paradigm: an ecological way of knowing, a green hermeneutics. It is not just a way of seeing ‘how things are connected,’ it is a discipline that redefines and expands what connection and relationship even is..”
- From Sinopoulos-Lloyd, Sophia. “Tracking as a Way of Knowing.”
Why it matters.
Chances are, at least one of your ancestors was an amazing tracker; it’s what has got you here today!
Develop relationships
Wildlife tracking is described as being both an art and a science. Our classes focus both on the practical and authentic skill development of tracking, as well as leaving space for the wonder, curiosity, and connection that inevitably arises from practicing this ancient skill.
Interpret the landscape
Wildlife trailing is that extra step on the journey. It involves combining all the knowledge of tracking to learn how to interpret the landscape and the behavior of the animals you wish to follow and hopefully see! In Ireland, deer are the animals we are most able to successfully trail.
CyberTracker evaluations
We host CyberTracker Track & Sign and Trailing evaluations in Ireland with one of Europe’s leading trackers, John Rhyder of the Woodcraft School.
“Stalking allows people to drop their everyday personae until the forest no longer realizes that they’re there. When you become the forest, when you’re silent inwardly and outwardly, the forest starts to wake up, to move. It’s amazing what can happen”
– Paul Rezendes, The Wild Within
