Animals and the way they use the river habitat provides important information about the river. By tracking we can determine what kinds of animals and how many animals use the corridor of land along the river. Finding out where the activity of the animals is concentrated can give us important clues about which aspects of the river corridor are important to the animals. This kind of information can help us decide the best ways to use river corridors to maintain an appropriate balance between the needs of humans and the needs of wildlife.
Tracking is especially easy in the winter when a fresh covering of light snow shows good detail. Tracking is a good addition to a winter visit to a flood plain area and can be useful in validating the skills and knowledge of students with this type of outdoor experience.
These are some of the tracks you might find along the stream. The raccoon is a common inhabitant of the flood plains and uses rivers and streams in many ways.
In our region the tracks of the raccoon are fairly different from anything else. Both the front and hind feet show paws with five finger-like digits. The raccoon walks on the palm of its hand/foot. While walking, the left hind foot is placed by the right fore foot and visa-versa.
When you find a raccoon track look at it closely. Is it the front foot or the hind foot? Is it the right or the left foot? If you find a series of tracks see if you can determine where the raccoon came from? Where it was going? What was it doing?
Another sign of raccoon is the presence of "middens" along the edges of the river. These are small piles of shells from the freshwater mussels the raccoon has eaten. (Muskrats also make these middens, so in regions of the river where both raccoons and muskrats might be found, you'll have to use other evidence - like tracks - to determine which species made the midden.)
If you would like to learn more you can visit the raccoon page of our website. A reference book which can tell you more about all kinds of animal tracks is A Field Guide to Animal Tracks (Peterson Field Guide Series) by Olaus Murie.