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Tracking humans takes skill and practice

Nechako Valley Search & Rescue (NVSAR) hosted two day BC Tracking Association course for volunteers
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SAR volunteers in the field. There were Search and Rescue volunteers from all over including from nearby Prince George and as far away as Terrace. Photo Chris Mashumanski

Nechako Valley Search and Rescue (NVSAR) hosted a two day BC Tracking Association course for volunteers. Friday August 11, was theory, learning about technique and equipment. Saturday’s tracking exercises were outside around the museum grounds.

“Tracking training not only gives you a new skill set, it makes you a much better ground search and rescue member,” says 16 year experienced NVSAR volunteer Chris Mashumanski.

The skill of visually tracking a person requires more technical skills and experience than one might assume. It’s a skill that needs to be trained and practiced. Things like determining the person’s footprint and direction of travel, noticing signs or evidence of a person’s passage or presence e.g. broken branches; bent grass; bruised vegetation; pebbles kicked over, compressed leaves or soil. Then the tracker needs to mark and flag the track, documenting the course the person followed.

Mantracking training material explains that tracking is “heightening your awareness of clues. It’s retraining the eyes so that you begin to see what otherwise has been invisible to you. It takes patience and concentration. On a real search, finding a clue you might otherwise overlook could mean the difference between life or death of the search subject.

Stay focused. You might be the one that redirects the search.”

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