Animal tracks on Mount Pisano

Flora, Fauna and Natural Environment, Uncategorized

Encountering a wild animal during a walk is not so easy. Instead, it is much more likely to find traces of its passage on the trail!

It can be great fun to learn to observe the tracks and signs of forest animals.

Tracks and marks include: footprints, tracks, droppings, meal remains, wads, feathers, hairs, resting sites.

Warning: wild animals should never be disturbed! Hunting for tracks does not necessarily mean encountering them. They are much quicker than we are and always anticipate us with their movements. Rather, interpreting tracks and signs is an exciting activity in itself. Let us learn to move respectfully, without producing any disturbing noises, and if we spot a wild animal, let us not follow it and enjoy the spectacle from a distance, even for our own safety.

Animals really leave so many clues: what their diet consists of, where they slept, what direction they went, and many more.

For example, the fatta (technical name for “excrement”) of a fox may be indicative of his last meal: the presence of kernels and red skins suggests that he had a good berry binge!

The red squirrel, greedy for pine nuts, gives evidence of its meal by leaving pine cones (scientific name: “strobili”) all gnawed on the ground.

On Mount Pisano it is very easy to come across often extensive areas where the ground is loose: these are wild boar rooting sites. What does rooting mean? It is the action of rooting, through which wild boars go in search of food.

What about this one? Who left it behind? It is a green woodpecker feather, probably dropped from molting. Bird feathers have a very distinctive structure, giving them lightness and strength at the same time.

The porcupine, Italy’s largest rodent, is certainly famous for its beautiful black-and-white banded quills. Porcupine quills are nothing more than modified hairs: stiff and smooth, they are made of keratin, the substance that forms our nails and hair. They have a defensive function, but it is not true that they are “shot” by the animal; they, too, simply fall off. In fact, it may happen, while walking in the woods, to find some of them on the ground. The spines, which are not poisonous, are an excellent defensive tool: in fact, when the porcupine is frightened by a possible aggressor, these spines are raised and shaken all together, producing a sound reminiscent of those of a rattle.

We conclude the roundup with the footprint of a very famous animal: the wolf. This mammal, a recent frequenter of Monte Pisano, can give evidence of its presence through facts, footprints, tracks. Unfortunately, there is an ongoing downgrading of this canid from a strict level of protection to a lesser one, which would allow its selective take. This maneuver is not scientifically validated, however, and could jeopardize the population status of this predator, which is critical to the balance of ecosystems.