San Diego Tracking Team

01/04/2024

Join us for a hands-on experience for families with the San Diego Tracking Team! Come learn how to spot evidence of creekside critters!

01/27/2023

Ever go hiking and come back not seeing a single animal? Join us in our first Beginning/Tracker Naturalist class of 2023. Discover the art of wildlife tracking and identification and a new way to "see" animals by the tracks and sign they leave behind. This introductory class is scheduled for Wednesday February 22nd (virtual 7-9pm) and Saturday February 25th (dirt time 8am-3:30pm). Class information, cost and registration is available on our website at https://www.sdtt.org/class-registration.html. Hope you will join us!

12/16/2022

Our 2023 class schedule is now posted on our website. You can find our event schedule at https://www.sdtt.org/events.html. We're offering our free wildlife survey training classes each quarter and our tracker/naturalist class series in each half of 2023. Hope you will join us!

12/06/2022

Our first FREE wildlife survey volunteer training class of 2023 is Saturday January 21st from 8am to 12:30pm. Start the year off right by learning the basics of wildlife tracking and assist us in our wildlife surveys. Registration is required in advanced. You can register via our website (SDTT.org). Go to the "Education" link, then select "Volunteer Training"

09/21/2022

THE SAN DIEGO TRACKING TEAM INVITES YOU TO

A FREE WILDLIFE TRACKING WORKSHOP

When is the last time you’ve had the experience of seeing tracks or s**t on the ground and wondered what animal was there? Was it a dog or a mountain lion, a bobcat or a fox? Where was it going? What was it doing? And where is it now?

If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about the wildlife that moves all round us, especially at night, the San Diego Tracking Team’s quarterly free Wildlife Survey Training is for you.

All animals leave behind clues to tell us who they are and what they’ve been doing. Anything from fallen feathers, fur, footprints and even s**t tells a story. It just takes a little practice to know what to look for to be able to interpret the animal’s behavior.

The San Diego Tracking Team (SDTT) has been training citizen scientists to identify animal track and sign for more than 20 years. Our upcoming free wildlife tracking training is a great way to get started on the path to being able to identify the animal sign and tracks you see in your garden, while hiking or simply walking along the beach.

The next Wildlife Survey Training will be held on October 8 at the Adobe Ranch House in Los Peñasquitos Preserve. It is a half-day workshop and ends by 12.30pm, leaving you free to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Throughout the morning we’ll touch on and discuss the following aspect of wildlife tracking:

· The best ways to find and approach tracks.

· Hands on track and sign identification outdoors.

· Partial track identification strategies.

· Wildlife foot morphology.

· Wildlife behavior and interaction with humans.

· How to recognize wildlife sign (browse, chews, scrapes).

· S**t: who was here and what were they eating?



If you are curious about the Wildlife Survey Training you can check out this video from one of our past events at this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id5Xe3wYYEc

The morning will change how you experience the outdoors and interpret animal sign and behavior. Following the training, you’re encouraged to join members of the SDTT in the field at 18 locations to help find and learn more about how to identify wild animal track and sign.

The SDTT conducts the wildlife surveys quarterly, so there are more than 50 surveys – many trackers attend two or three every quarter. They’re held throughout the county from the coast to the foothills to the mountains to the desert whether you are on a hike or in the garden or on one of our wildlife surveys as a volunteer citizen scientist.

Interested in joining us on October 8th for the training? We would love to have you join us.

The trainings are limited to a maximum of 20 participants. Time is of the essence if you’re interested. After you register you’ll receive an email detailing when and where to meet.

Register here: https://www.sdtt.org/contact-us.html If the October training is already full when you register, we’ll put you first in line for the next quarterly training to be held on January 21, 2023.

I took a the Wildlife Survey Training Course to assist in SD County Transects and learned about all sorts of animals, their tracks, their impact to the count...

09/11/2022

Our next FREE wildlife survey volunteer training class is Saturday October 8th from 8am to 12:30pm. This is our last volunteer training of 2022. What better time to learn the basics of wildlife tracking and assist us in our wildlife surveys. Registration is required in advanced. You can register via our website (SDTT.org).
Go to the "Education" link, then select "Volunteer Training".

08/11/2022

Our next Beginning Tracker/Naturalist class of 2022 is scheduled for Wednesday evening September 14th (7-9pm virtual presentation) and Saturday September 17th (8:00am-3:30pm field day). Class description is on our website (sdtt.org) along with registration and payment information. Following the Beginning Tracker/Naturalist class, our Intermediate and Advanced classes are scheduled for October and November, respectively. Hope you can join us!

06/22/2022

Our next FREE wildlife survey volunteer training class is Saturday July 16 from 8am to 12:30pm. We are starting to reach our class limit, so please register soon if you are interested. Registration is required in advanced. You can register via our website (SDTT.org). Go to the "Education" link, then select "Volunteer Training".

01/20/2022

Our first Beginning Tracker/Naturalist Class of 2022 is scheduled for Wednesday evening February 23 (7-9pm virtual presentation) and Saturday February 26th (8:00am-3:30pm field day). Class description is on our website (sdtt.org) along with registration and payment information.

12/19/2021

Our 2022 class schedule is now on our website (SDTT.org). Just go to the event calendar to find class descriptions and registration information.

11/25/2021

Congratulations to the recent graduates of our Tracker Naturalist Class series. Nice to be able to hold these classes again!

07/03/2021

WE'RE BACK!

The San Diego Tracking Team is pleased to announce that its education programs are starting back up again this fall 2021. We're still working out some of the details and class sizes will be limited, but we want to get this posted so you can SAVE THE DATE(S).

Wildlife Survey Volunteer Training: Saturday Morning, Oct. 9, 2021, 8:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. This free half-day class is designed to prepare students to participate in surveys that monitor wildlife in major open space preserves throughout San Diego County. For a further description of this class see: https://www.sdtt.org/volunteer-training.html

Beginning Tracker/Naturalist Class: Wednesday Evening, Sept. 15, 2021, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. [Virtual Class]; Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. [location to be announced]. This class is designed to introduce basic mammal track and sign identification to determine who made the track. We discuss track patterns and gaits as a means to interpret how an animal moves. And we recommend sketching and field journaling to reinforce learning objectives. For a further description of the Tracker/Naturalist series of classes see: https://www.sdtt.org/tracker-training.html

Intermediate Tracker/Naturalist Class: Wednesday Evening, Oct. 13, 2021, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. [Virtual Class]; Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021, 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. [location to be announced].

Advanced Tracker/Naturalist Class: Wednesday Evening, Nov. 17, 2021, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. [Virtual Class]; Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021, 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. [location to be announced].