March 2025 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
We found the Montana mountain lion’s tracks on a fresh skiff of newly fallen snow, crossing the road and ducking under a barbed wire fence along a trail that the deer regularly used. Her tracks were crisp, and our guide asked us if we’d like to abandon our original plan to look for a variety of tracks and signs, or would we like to follow her…
What would you do? To find out what our answer was, read on in the Snow Tracking section below…
January 2025 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
Four researchers and trainers working across continents, all with a passion for trackers and tracking.
Kersey is from the USA, Jiska is from the Netherlands, and both of them currently live in South Africa. Along with Matt Nelson (USA) and Sandy Reed (USA), the Soul of Tracking team are collaborating in a long-term international Tracking Research project through the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Read more about it here.
December 2024 Year in Review from Original Wisdom
Team Original Wisdom, Kersey Lawrence, Lee Gutteridge, Sandy and Cal Reed, Shane Hawkins, Hillary Lisowski, Samantha Snodgrass, Ozzy Banda, would all like to wish you happy holidays and a healthy and prosperous new year. As we close another year, we want to take a moment to thank all of you who have supported and joined us in our mission. Here’s to all the joys of the holiday season and to a New Year filled with hope, progress, and lots of Tracking!
Song and music by John Edmund, Story in the Sand.
November 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
René Nauta from Holland tracks fallow deer in tough conditions in West Sussex, England. He earned his Trailing Specialist from CyberTracker Conservation, earning him the title of Senior Tracker when combined with his already achieved Track & Sign ID Specialist.
There are a number of new Specialists this month, in North America, Europe, and Africa. We’ll tell you a bit about the ones that Original Wisdom was directly involved with in this newsletter. The community of skilled Trackers is gathering momentum!
October 2024 News, Stories, and Events from Original Wisdom
Some nipped twigs taken from inside the large dung balls of an endangered black rhinoceros. We are so lucky to see these on their infrequent trails and I keep them in my pocket as “awareness reminders” of these secretive and dangerous beings.
Photo credit: Kersey Lawrence
Featured Event from South Africa:
On the Trail of Elephants: A story with Finger Lakes Community College participants from our upcoming book.
By Kersey Lawrence & Lee Gutteridge
Featured Event in North America:
Go Wild! Nature Fair in Coyote Run Fairfield Park
By Sandy Reed
Featured Event in Human Culture:
Wild Clay Pots
by Cal Reed
February 2024 News, Stories and Events from Original Wisdom
An eastern coyote straddle trots across Alum Creek in Ohio. This months leading photo was taken by Original Wisdom staff Sandy Reed in one of the rare moments this year that snow accumulated in central Ohio.
Brandon Willis Legacy Scholarship
In 2017, Brandon Willis joined students from New Albany High School, Ohio, for a trip to South Africa with Original Wisdom. He traveled as a member of a high school class titled “Wildlife Tracking, Digital Photography and Robotic Applications.” Brandon was already an accomplished photographer before he joined us for the trip. He dove into […]
Tracker Tuesdays – Week 3
Q and A for 14 – 20 April 2020 Answers at a glance: tortoise tracks from South Africa; African lion and spotted hyena tracks from South Africa; dove nest with scats from Chile, South America; grey fox double register and in a straddle trot from Massachusetts, USA; secretarybird track from South Africa; Patriziana brunneus nymphal […]
Tracker Tuesdays – Week 2
Q and A for 14 – 20 April 2020 Questions: White-tailed mongoose tracks, acorn weevil sign, pip gall wasp sign, female zebra’s skull, black-backed jackal scat, Stark’s hare scat, European forest bison incisor marks, beetle trail, centipede trail Amongst our global efforts to #flattenthecurve, we shared a few tracking photos on our Original Wisdom Facebook […]
Tracker Tuesdays – Week 1
Week 1, 7-14 April 2020 Download our recommended reading list for trackers by signing up for our “News for Trackers” newsletter! Our goal is NOT to be spammy with our newsletter. We’d just like to send occasional updates on upcoming programs and maybe some cool info on wildlife, people, and tracking! Once the sign-up form […]
2020 Calendar of Programs
African and North American programs listed – we have some exciting stuff, from tracking with the Bushmen in the Kalahari, to Tracking and Bushcraft Intensives, Invertebrate Tracks and Signs, CyberTracker evaluations, and more! Please go to this page to view our calendar for 2020, many programs listed are hyperlinked to the complete details. Bookmark this […]
It takes a village to medicate an elephant
To watch the 3 minute YouTube video that accompanies this story, scroll down to the link at the bottom. We pulled in to Dundee Dam with our students, FGASA Level 1 guide trainees from all over the world, to view a hippo cow and calf that were in thewater. Across the dam wall, we saw […]
I’m Published! (Population Ecology!)
Just published in Population Ecology, online at: Yan, J., Chen, Y., Lawrence-Apfel, K., Ortega, I. M., Pozdnyakov, V., Williams, S. C., and Meyer, T. H. (2013), “A Moving-Resting Process with an Embedded Brownian Motion for Animal Movements,” Population Ecology, DOI: 10.1007/s10144-013-0428-8. Abstract Animal movements are of great importance in studying home ranges, migration routes, resource selection, […]
In the news; My Research in Tracking!
In the news at UCONN Today (June 12, 2013) Click here for a direct link to the article: Graduate Student Uses Ancient Skills in Modern Conservation Efforts Always Tracking, Kersey