The Next Step: Interpreting Wildlife Tracks, Trails and Sign takes the reader beyond identifying evidence of wildlife into the interpretation of that evidence, the search for the behavior of the animal that left it. In this book the still picture in the reader's mind of the animal he or she has succeeded in identifying can be put into motion in the mind's eye. In this way the reader can develop an appreciation and understanding of the animal and its behavior: how and why it interacts with and reacts to other animals and with its habitat. Preliminary to interpreting evidence of an animal's presence and behavior, of course, is the need to know where and how to find and recognize animal sign in the first place; where to look and how to see the often nearly invisible evidence that awaits discovery. No other tracking book on the market deals extensively with either finding animals sign or interpreting the behavior it documents.
David Brown is a lifelong naturalist and teacher whose interest in animal tracks and sign began in the early 1980s. He studied the field for six years before starting to present tracking programs himself through his company, David Brown's Wildlife Services. Since then he has amassed a collection of thousands of high-resolution photographs of wildlife sign that serve as the principal resource for indoor programs as well as for the images that appear in The Next Step. In addition to tracking programs, he has also conducted dozens of wildlife inventories for public and private landholders and has served as a wildlife education consultant to environmental institutions.
David Brown was born and grew up in Malden, Massachusetts, in an area surrounded by forest, rock outcrop and wetland. His lifelong interest in natural history began while roaming these woods as a boy. An avid birder from the age of twelve when he was stunned by the beauty of a Baltimore oriole that flew over his house, he once hiked ten miles to see a rare bird reported in a metropolitan park near Boston. He is a graduate of Tufts University with a B.A. in English, a decorated marine veteran of the Viet Nam conflict and a public school teacher of 20 years experience.
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