Sign

A complete print is not always possible to be found. More times than not only fragments of prints are seen. A walking person leaves sign approximately every 18-20 inches, 3000 times per mile, finding even a small percentage of this should not be difficult. The probelm is learning to determine what is relevant and what is not.

Depending on the enviroment, a tracker may look for bent grass, broken twigs, flattened soil, disturbed brush, compressed stones, and many other signs.

Sign may be classified in two different categories

Conclusively Human...That which can be positively said to have been made by humans
Corroborant...That which may not be be positively human by itself but may when combined with other evidence substantiate the passage of the human.

The Novice Tracker

Any track or sign is considered evidence until proven otherwise

Once a track has been destroyed it can not be reconstructed

If the objective is finding a lost person, destroying sign can literally mean the difference between life or death

Credo of the novice tracker:

Do not advance beyond the last print until you find the next one

Do not destroy the evidence

Use a sign cutting stick

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