Skip to main content
Menu

Wildlife Signs

This program is intended for all ages 5 and up. Programs should be requested at least one month in advance and are booked on a first come first served basis as educators are available. Starting in January 2024, we are asking groups who wish to book this program for a $50 suggested donation to help cover the cost of supplies (due on the day of the program). Participants in this program must be able to tolerate walking on loose sandy soil for a distance of no less than 0.8 miles in the climate typical to the time of year in which the program is booked. Water, bug spray and sunblock are recommended. The length of this program is 2.5 hours.

Introduction:

Wildlife signs are everywhere if you know where to look! Biologists gain so much information about wildlife from the signs they leave behind. For instance, wildlife signs can often tell us what animals have been at a location and potentially how healthy they are, how old they are, and what they are eating. In this program, we will focus not on seeing animals in the wild, but on seeing how animals use the wild and what signs they leave behind for us to interpret.

Pre-visit recommendations:

  1. Review terms:
    • Trace evidence: a very small piece of something left behind, in this case by an animal
    • Tracks: the footprints of an animal
    • Scat: the digested remains of an animal's meal after excretion
    • Remains: parts of a dead animal left behind after it dies
    • Habitat: the natural place where an animal lives
  2. Discuss different types of animal homes

Activities:

  • Indoor presentation on animal track ID and distribution of track ID cards
  • Practice casting animal tracks
  • Discussion on the types of animal evidence we will potentially observe
  • Guided one-hour hike to look for animal evidence
  • Dissect owl pellets
  • Informal review and evaluation
  • Optional: kinetic sand track play, track matching game, pelts and skulls

Post Visit:

  • Play animal track bingo to see how well they remember the tracks
  • Create animal track stamps using potatoes to allow children to make prints of their favorite track
  • Create plaster casts of animal tracks you find at school or at home