FOUNDATIONS FOR AWARENESS, SIGNCUTTING, AND TRACKING
Are you interested in tracking skills? If you have spent any time outside, you have come across tracks or sign left by animals and people. If you have ever wondered how to interpret, and even follow, human tracks or sign, this book is for you. This book imparts knowledge necessary to answer the questions What happened here? and Who made that track? This is an essential book for encouraging and developing your awareness of the outdoors. It is a great aid for property owners, hunters, naturalists, search and rescue teams, military instructors and law enforcement agencies.
Through explanations, illustrations and many pictures from actual searches for missing persons, this book describes methods and techniques used by tracking personnel to do the following:
- Become familiar with the terminology of tracking
- Dispel misconceptions about tracking
- Select and use tools of the tracking trade
- Record and document tracking information
- Manage light and shadow to your advantage
- Learn about improving your awareness
- Find, follow and interpret tracks and sign
- Receive information about footwear as it relates to tracking
- Learn how to age sign
- Understand what to look for as sign of passage on various ground covers
- Get an introduction to animal tracking
It is written to cover many basic topics in tracking, signcutting and awareness as applied in search and rescue. This 268 page full size manual is based on the current standards for the Tracking Team Operations course approved by the Virginia Search and Rescue Council and certified by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. Written, printed and published in the USA, it has over 115 pictures and illustrations, a handful of which are in color. It also includes a glossary, index, and bibliography.
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