Wildlife Safety, Bird Alarms, Animal Tracks & Trails

Join us for a great day tracking and trailing wild animals. Learn to know when cougars, coyotes, bears or other critters are around by listening to the birds on the trail, and learn what to do in case you run into them. Learn to view nature like a detective, following clues and solving mysteries that others neglect to see. Amazingly, animals reveal themselves to all who can read their stories in the earth. As you will see, tracks can even tell us about the size, health, emotions, history and even intentions of animals which would otherwise remain hidden all around us.


We’ll start with a safety overview for living, hiking, hunting and foraging in wolf, cougar and bear country. It is important to understand large predators and their prey in order to keep yourself safe, and to keep them safe in the wild. That’s the crux of the matter: everyone wants to protect nature and themselves at the same time. The key is knowledge, and taking right action based on that knowledge. Each species has particular triggers to become aware of, and you should learn their “language” in order to avoid problems.

The workshop takes place where sign of all the big and little wild animals found in our bioregion are concentrated. Whether you hunt with a camera, bow or gun, or if you just love northwest wildlife, you are welcome you to join us for a special day of tracking. Learn specialized tracking and trailing skills as we venture to get close to elk, deer, bear, and a host of other critters as well. In addition to learning what to do in case you run into bears on the trail, you will gain skills to help you become the first to know where to find (or avoid) their hidden dens

The most important skill in nature is awareness, whether it be for safety or discovering animals. We will start by practicing “wide angle vision” like owls do, plus “expanded hearing” like deer use to decipher whether sounds they hear in the forest are predators or friendlies, and the “stealth walk” like foxes teach us in order to move undetected in nature so we see more animals and experience their behavior as if we weren’t there. We like to say that if you bring home just one set of skills from tonight’s class, that these awareness activities are it. They will help you see more wildlife, and keep you safer, in city and wilderness, better than any other set of knowledge.

In order to help you open to a world of evidence that animals leave wherever they move, we’ll look for and discuss scrapes, lays, burrows, latrines, larders, nests, partial tracks, pressure releases, vegetative cuttings, and everything else we can find – even the condition of feathers to determine exactly how or if a bird might have been killed or injured.You also have to be able to trail animals if you want to find them, so now that your eyes are adjusted to seeing sign, we’re going to train you in the kind of trailing that real animal trackers use, keeping your head up and walking fast, identifying voices of the birds to know what is up ahead!

##### FAQs

Who are the instructors? Wolf Camp directors Kim & Chris Chisholm are leading this workshop.
What ages can participate? Workshops are designed for adults, but youth may enroll with a parent/guardian.
How should we prepare for the workshop? Please prepare as you normally would for a hike, including snacks, lunch, water bottle, 10 essentials, etc., but especially with appropriate clothing including rain gear and waterproof footwear. Also, bring along a set of binoculars, digital camera, and if you don’t have a birding field guide yet and wish to purchase one, we recommend: Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest by David Moskowitz, among others.

COST is $135 for one person, or $110 per additional friend/family member registering with you in advance. Reserve your spots via one of the following methods, or click on specific programs for FAQs:

• Zelle is preferred using our email address with that extra “e” on skye plus try to add a note including camper name/age, camp start date/theme, plus your CONTACT INFORMATION (phone number is fine if system doesn’t allow sharing email) if we don’t already have your info since Zelle doesn’t automatically share that with us;
• Or use Venmo to @Chris-Chisholm-13 or • CashApp to $wolfschool but again, try to add your contact information, camper name, program theme and dates, or follow up right away with that via email;
• Or use Credit Card, PayPal or Apple Pay;
• Or call us between 9am-9pm at 425-248-0253 ex 1 with a credit card to register over the phone;