Track Finds December 2023 and February 2024
Track Finds December 2023 and February 2024
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In December 2023, a friend from the NAWAC joined me in Florida to investigate here in the Green Swamp. We spent several days working in a new location that I'd been eager to check out. Although the larger wildlife management area was open to hunting, this particular tract of approximately 11,000 acres was closed to hunting except for special events.
Eric is quick to spot tracks and other signs of animals, although we both noted a marked absence of prey animals besides deer and hog in the area. (Over the course of the next several months, I conducted a formal transect sampling study of that area and noted very little sign of smaller prey animal such as raccoon, rabbit, squirrel, etc., until after hunting season.) We spent three days hiking the area, partially on trails, but also pressing through patches of palmetto and mosquito infested cypress stands.
In one location, which bordered a large stand of cypress, Eric spotted a possible track near a downed tree. We could see that surface material had been compressed down, and it appeared there were toes squished up under the debris on top. The image doesn't do the track justice, that's due to my inexperience at the time, but the track was between 12 and 13 inches in length.
I continued to research this location (and still do) and obtained interesting audio evidence, as well as receiving a compelling tree fall and tree shaking demonstration. Considering the findings of the NAWAC's Tag 7 paper, these animals require a tremendously large home range, so these tracks may have been on the edge of what could be miles away from a core area.
The following February, I was spending the day with one of my kids and we returned to this location to collect an audio device. While walking a game trail about 35 yards from where Eric and I found the first track, this second track was located.
The track was the only one found. It was just beside the game trail, where the trail took a little jog around a soft spot, as if the animal missed a step. There was a large hog wallow to the right before the trail passed between some pine trees.
The track was 2.5 inches deep at the heel and 3 inches deep at the toes. My son, who is 6 foot tall, and at that time was 220 pounds, very carefully hopped in the soil next to the track to see if he could replicate the impression with his boots and he barely made a half-inch impression.
Above: The February 2024 track prior to casting, adjacent to a game trail.
The cast took 45 minutes to cure.
The second track resulted in a cast that is just shy of 12 inches long, nearly 6 inches wide across the toes, and nearly 4.75 inches across the ball of the foot. It features a bend at the midtarsal point in the foot, indicating a possible pivot in the animal's stride.
To bring scientific methodology and analytical discipline to the study of reported evidence for the large, unclassified primate known as Bigfoot, Sasquatch, skunk ape, or wood ape, living in North America.
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