Tracking seminar offered this weekend

By JOHN PEPIN, Journal Munising Bureau

MUNISING — The first of three upcoming seminars on wildlife tracking skills will be offered this weekend in Munising.

Expert wildlife tracker Jim Halfpenny, PhD. will be the instructor for the two-day Munising seminar, which features both indoor and outdoor instruction. The emphasis of the professional level sessions is on reading trails to understand animals behavior and ecology.

The program is being offered by the Timber Wolf Alliance of Northland College’s Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute of Ashland, Wis. The day-long Munising sessions will begin at 8 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Express on Saturday and Sunday. Pre-registration is required and space is limited to 40 participants.

Two additional two-day sessions will be taught on Dec. 5-6 in Watersmeet and on Dec. 9-10 in Tomahawk, Wis. The cost for the workshop includes instruction, meals, materials, and for some workshops, lodging.

“We are thrilled to have one of the world’s foremost professional wildlife trackers teach these workshops,” said Pam Troxell, coordinator of the Timber Wolf Alliance program. “It is quite an opportunity to have someone of Jim’s caliber be available to us.”

Halfpenny has taught tracking for nearly 30 years, has partnered with Timber Wolf Alliance on tracking workshops for the past decade, and is the founder of “A Naturalist’s World,” an educational tracking adventure company.

He is a former research associate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, was an instructor at the National Outdoor Leadership School, and served as director of the Mountain Research Station.

In addition to numerous scientific and popular articles, Halfpenny is author of “A Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in North America,” “Winter: An Ecological Handbook, and the soon to be released “Scats and Tracks of the Great Lakes Region.”

The goal of the Wildlife Tracking Skills workshops is to offer quality tracking skill training and information about large carnivore ecology to participants in both classroom and field settings, Troxell said.

“Our workshops cover track and sign identification, footprint analysis, gait interpretation, trail reading, and understanding animal behavior and ecology,” Troxell said.

In Wisconsin, similar tracking sessions have helped citizen volunteers become qualified to help the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources track wolves in that state.

Cost for the Munising session is $170 without lodging, $155 for Timber Wolf Alliance supporting members.

The Watersmeet workshop will be held at the Lac Vieux Desert Casino, and the cost is $170 (without lodging), $155 for TWA supporters. The Tomahawk, Wis. sessions will be held at the Treehaven Field Station. Cost is $190 (with 1 night lodging), $175 for TWA supporters, $210 (with 2 nights lodging), $195 for TWA supporters.

For more information about the workshops, contact the Timber Wolf Alliance at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute by calling (715) 682-1223, or e-mail twa@northland.edu

The Mining Journal