Overview

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, 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.

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9780231215985

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Reviews

A collection of beautifully written stories about the author’s quest to deepen her connection with nature. -- Jonah Evans, Track and Sign Evaluator, Cybertracker Reading Ribbon of Life is like going on a slow and restorative hike with a close friend. The book is filled with both personal stories and insight into the natural history of North American mammals, giving the reader a guide to more deeply witness and love the lives of wildlife around us. Sharman Apt Russell offers an antidote to defaunation, one dusty footprint at a time. -- Emily Burns, Program Director, Sky Island Alliance

A collection of beautifully written stories about the author’s quest to deepen her connection with nature. -- Jonah Evans, Track and Sign Evaluator, Cybertracker Reading What Walks This Way is like going on a slow and restorative hike with a close friend. The book is filled with both personal stories and insight into the natural history of North American mammals, giving the reader a guide to more deeply witness and love the lives of wildlife around us. Sharman Apt Russell offers an antidote to defaunation, one dusty footprint at a time. -- Emily Burns, Program Director, Sky Island Alliance

What a satisfying book—it makes me want to grab a pack and head out the door. Sharman Apt Russell brings a tracker’s eye to the lives of wild animals, illuminating signs she finds with a curated wealth of natural history. With language as clear as fresh deer tracks in snow, she answers the important questions: why skunks are striped, how to tell a coyote's prints from a dog’s, and what drives a species toward or away from extinction. Readers who rarely look at the ground will have a hard time looking back up, and those familiar with tracking will be surprised by what they learn. -- Craig Childs, author of <i>Stone Desert</i> Far more than a field guide, What Walks This Way captures the wonder and delight of following our fellow animals. -- Michelle Nijhuis, author of <i>Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction</i> As someone who dreams about the wildlife crisscrossing my neighborhood—and the continent—What Walks This Way is the marvelous book I have been waiting for. Sharman Apt Russell's lucid and engaging voice helps us decipher wildlife tracks while greatly enriching our lexicon of the natural world. -- Priyanka Kumar, author of <i>Conversations with Birds</i> On the surface, this book serves as a tutorial in the art of tracking wildlife, but at a deeper level it’s about paying greater attention and respect to nature. Russell mixes science, wit, and an empathy for all creatures, telling stories that fascinate, amuse, and surprise in equal measure. Above all, she advocates for wildlife diversity and the intrinsic dignity of wild animals, pointing out the trail we can take to become better humans. -- John Seibert Farnsworth, author of <i>Nature Beyond Solitude</i> A collection of beautifully written stories about the author’s quest to deepen her connection with nature. -- Jonah Evans, CyberTracker evaluator, nongame and rare species program director for Texas Parks and Wildlife Reading What Walks This Way is like going on a slow and restorative hike with a close friend. The book is filled with both personal stories and insight into the natural history of North American mammals, giving the reader a guide to more deeply witness and love the lives of wildlife around us. Sharman Apt Russell offers an antidote to defaunation, one dusty footprint at a time. -- Emily Burns, program director, Sky Island Alliance An enjoyable ramble through the world of citizen trackers…. I found a quiet pleasure in reading Sharman Apt Russell’s book about lay naturalists who are developing simple, nontechnological skills far beyond those of most of our institutional biologists. -- Harley Shaw, author of <i>Soul Among Lions: The Cougar as Peaceful Adversary</i> I love the montage used to build human-sign-animal connections in each chapter—the vignettes of straight-up tracking info, social-psychological dynamics, history, and stripped-down conversations. It’s great stuff. -- David Mattson, founder, <i>Grizzly Times</i> Take this book with you and go outside. Bend down and look closely. Let Sharman Apt Russell instruct you in how to remember your place in the family of beings we share this planet with. I can’t think of a better mentor than this seasoned writer who conveys the gravity of our and their situation but at the same time injects heart and humor into this beautiful field guide to our animal kin. -- Lorraine Anderson, editor of <i>Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry About Nature</i> After reading this book, I will never again walk along a sandy wash and see it the same way. Sharman Apt Russell takes the reader on a poignant yet playful journey, following not only tracks but also the animals' sagas and status as they prowl and tromp through our modern world. Her compassion for their fate is equaled by the humor and wonder that she finds with each step along the way. -- Anne Lane Hedlund, author of <i>Navajo Weaving in the Twentieth Century</i> and coauthor of <i>Navajo Weavers of the American Southwest</i> Not a field guide, not a textbook, but a series of stories of introduction and observation, of facts and figures interspersed with story and connection. Sharman Apt Russell sets the stage, complete with backstory and current status, of more than two dozen wild critters one might encounter in North America. With support from Kim A. Cabrera’s collection of track photos, this book weaves through her unique experience connecting with the natural world. A thoroughly enjoyable book! -- Shane Hawkins, Tracker Certification North America and Original Wisdom I live on the edge of a desert city on land traversed by coyotes, deer, javelinas, bobcats, all manner of snakes, the occasional mountain lion and black bear, a dozen species of rodents and another dozen species of lizards, and, overhead, a hundred kinds of birds. As Sharman Apt Russell writes in this luminous portrait, they “do not want us seeing into their secret lives.” But see and learn we must if we are to help them survive. This peerless book is just the place to start. -- Gregory McNamee, author of <i>Gila: The Life and Death of an American River</i> Sharman Apt Russell loves tracking, observing what walked this way. She includes requisite graphics and detailed discussions to give enthusiasts a good chance to succeed at identifying mammalian spoor. Chapters run the gamut from big ones (cougar) to small ones (rodents). Beyond identification essentials, Russell also lays out interesting context and background on species. All in all, this book shines a light, figuratively and literally, on the generally ignored, unseen evidence of animals that, when observed, fires the imagination. -- Jim Furnish, author of <i>Toward a Natural Forest</i> and retired deputy chief, U.S. Forest Service An imaginative and personal track-and-sign conversation ripe with insight and wisdom. -- David Moskowitz, Tracker Certification North America, biologist, photographer, and outdoor educator I have been following Sharman Apt Russell’s work for decades and always end up seeing the world differently as a result of the tracks she leaves across the mesas, along the riverbanks, and in the sand of southwest New Mexico. Few writers match her ability to combine information with passion and perception. She is a master storyteller, and What Walks This Way is an astounding book. -- M. John Fayhee, author of <i>A Long Tangent</i> and <i>Smoke Signals</i>

Author Information

Sharman Apt Russell teaches at the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles and is a professor emeritus at Western New Mexico University. She is the author of a dozen books and winner of the 2016 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing. Kim A. Cabrera is a master tracker and well-known wildlife tracking educator.

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