Shane Hawkins starts most mornings with a hike on her property in western New York. During these walks, she observes subtle clues that tell a complex story of what’s taking place around her. Not only will she notice tracks left behind by certain species, but she will get to know individual animals by their unique signatures—size, shape, and tendency. Through her skills in animal tracking, and with the help of trail cameras, she has come to know the differences between red and gray fox and the habits of male and female fisher. “It’s very humbling to know all of this is happening and doesn't have anything to do with us,” she says.
Hawkins has learned to always question her assumptions of what’s happening. “Tracking is all about pattern recognition,” she says—and that requires dirt time. She has to consider all the available information, including what came before the track she’s in contact with and all that came afterward. It’s exactly what she has to do as executive director at Infinity Visual and Performing Arts, a youth-development program in Jamestown, when defusing a work conflict or assessing the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. “There are reasons for everything that happens,” she says. “My job on the trail or at work is to get to the root.”
Hawkins, who now teaches tracking, is among a growing cohort of venture capital investors, tech founders, and business executives who are turning to the ancient practice of animal tracking as a means of honing their ability to navigate complex systems, anticipate patterns, and make decisions based on rapidly changing, incomplete information. The process of recreating animal movements blends intuition with data analytics and strategic thinking, which some say is exactly the sort of integral skill set needed at this moment. From the Kalahari to California, wilderness guides are stepping into the role of business professor, cultivating what might be considered a more feral form of leadership.
Tracking is as old as mankind, with the earliest hominins trailing animals when hunting. While modernity and its omniscient satellites have made tracking less necessary to survival, the skills and qualities it teaches may be more needed than ever. Sure enough, tracker Jim Lowery, who quit his job as a development director at a legal aid foundation to found Earth Skills in 1987, says there has been a surge of interest in recent years.
Beyond just identifying footprints, trackers interpret clues like scat, scent, and trails, such as trampled grass. They also consider environmental influences like wind direction, temperature, and the presence of other prey or predators. Eventually they are able to see and move from the perspective of the animal. But a tracker never has certainty. They must move forward relying on probability, experiential knowledge, and intuition. “If you assume that any reality is static, then you're sunk,” Lowery says. “Every reality is a tentative one. You have to make a commitment to continue learning and revising as you follow the trail.” The quality tracking experts seem to agree is most fundamental to success: humility.
Adriaan Louw, who lives and works in South Africa, has been bestowed with the highest honors a tracker can receive. “When you get there, you simply realize how much you don't know,” he says. Louw worked for years taking business executives into the bush. He says when management teams go into a big, unmanaged system, where animals are animals and plants are plants, people very quickly realize who they are, too—and what they’re naturally suited to be doing within an organization.
Louw knows the moment someone loses the trail. The spine arches forward and shoulders slump, compressing the rib cage and airflow. Often those walking behind can still see the tracks because they have a different vantage point. The solution, which is so simple and so often elusive, is to stop, look up, and take a deep breath.
Lowery has a different practice when he gets lost: Talk to the animal. “I say, OK, can you help me out here? Where are we going?” Lowery says. “I have to shift out of me. It’s about how I’m relating to the animal.” He likens it to the way a business leader is defined in relation to their stakeholders. Similarly, before following any trail, Lowery always begins by asking permission—and he abides the answer. “Don’t think you can follow an animal without consequence,” he says. (In memoriam: Jim Lowery passed away after being interviewed for this article.)
