What Walks This Way

Did a red fox pass this way? Could that be a bobcat print there in the dirt? Do those tracks belong to a domestic dog or a coyote? Combining lyrical memoir with an introduction to wildlife tracking (rather than a straight-up field guide to animal tracks), What Walks This Way explores the joys of learning to recognize the traces of the creatures with whom we share our world.

The nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife – mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice – near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. With wit and compassion, she guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks left by browsing deer, predatory weasels, and inquisitive bears, skunks, and raccoons. Closely observing these traces, Russell also finds community, a sense of place, and a renewed connection with the nonhuman world. She explores the health of mammal populations in North America and questions common wildlife-management practices, calling for new approaches that better reflect current understandings of ecology. Above all, What Walks This Way is a celebration of all the wild animals secretly, stubbornly, and triumphantly roving through our cities, suburbs, and countryside.

1. Ribbon of Life
2. Turn Your Dog's Paw Upside Down
3. Coyotes Are the Original Aikido
4. Let's Just Enjoy Foxes
5. It Almost Seems Wolves Should Be Allowed to Vote
6. We'll Lift That Lion Right Off That Limb
7. Bobcat and Lynx
8. A Black-and-White Aesthetic
9. The Entangled World of Humans and Raccoons
10. Three Bears
11. The Sudden Beating of Brains
12. You Think You Know What the IUCN Is Going to Say
13. The Little Guys
14. Hooves
15. Skulls and Bones
16. A New Vision of Wildlife Management
17. The Evaluation

Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index