This winter, we’re looking at how to identify PEI wildlife tracks and sign. Raccoons often stay in their dens and rely on fat reserves over the winter, but our mild weather means they’ve been quite active in recent weeks. Raccoon tracks are among the easiest to identify – if you know what to look for!
Perfect Raccoon tracks are distinctive and unlikely to be confused with anything else: five, sausage-shaped toes on each foot, connected to a C-shaped palm pad (Photo 1). Overall, this is a very human hand-like appearance. Each toe has a nail that – in the ideal tracking conditions shown here – leaves a clear imprint. The hind foot is larger than the front, and you can tell left from right by the ‘thumb’ set a little farther back than the other toes. In Photo 1 the upper track is a hind right foot, and the lower track is a front left.
In addition to distinctive tracks, Raccoons have a distinctive gait. When walking, they move the front and hind legs on one side almost simultaneously, very much like a pacing horse at the racetrack. This results in characteristic side-by-side tracks with the front right foot paired with the hind left, and vice-versa in an alternating diagonal pattern along the trail (Photo 2). If you can’t quite picture how this happens, try replicating the gait yourself on all fours and you’ll quickly see what I mean. Anytime you see that alternating diagonal you can be sure it’s a Raccoon, even if the tracks themselves are not clear (Photo 3 by Pam MacDonald, used with permission).
Despite these traits, Raccoon tracks are often misidentified. I attribute this to three things. First, tracks are rarely perfect and many people don’t know to look for that alternating diagonal gait. Second, Raccoons are climbers and tracks along fences, waste carts, rafters, or raised decks can make people think Cat instead. Finally, Raccoons share our habitats and so their tracks are among those most commonly seen; as a result, the percentage of Raccoon tracks misidentified may not be higher than those of other mammals, but the resulting number likely is.
Once you are able to consistently recognize individual Raccoon feet and the normal gait, you can have some fun figuring out what more complex sets of tracks tell you (Photo 4). At the top and bottom of this photo, note the normal, alternating diagonals labelled in black.
That leaves the odd pattern in the middle, outlined in yellow. To visualize what’s going on, we need to know which foot is which, so I’ve labelled them. This Raccoon was moving in its usual gait with front and hind right feet landing at about the same time, but something to the right caught its attention. The Raccoon paused mid-stride and turned to look to the right, counter-balancing with its left feet. Notice the change in orientation from the bottom pair of tracks, that the front right foot within the yellow outline is turned slightly to the right, and that there is more weight on it than on the front left foot (as shown by the deeper imprint).
After the pause, this Raccoon’s next step was to move its front left foot from the middle of the photo (yellow) to the top of the photo (black). It then resumed its normal walking gait, moving both feet on the right side nearly simultaneously and continuing out of the photo.
In some cases, gait can be a useful identification feature. In others, it can tell you how an animal was feeling and what it was up to. As we move through this series, we’ll look not only at tracks but also at gait (as well as scat – fair warning!) and get to know more about our neighbours of other species here on PEI untamed!
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