Art is modern, art is contemporary, art is dance, art is entertainment, is tracking an art?

Art requires skill, an eye to detail, true passion and is most certainly open for interpretation. A painting can hang in the Louvre with so many hidden textures, meanings and allows for discussion and elucidation on how or why or what was the artist doing or meaning? This is exactly the same when it comes to tracking, if it’s a skew toe or scar, or the positioning of the feet pads on a leopards tracks, to the stride length and commotion in the sand. This enables us to understand what the animal was doing and almost to picture as if we are this animal and to ‘dance with it’.

I introduce my tracker, Heavyness, to guests every day and tell them his role is to read the daily newspaper and to interpret the daily antics and articles that the animals have left in the sand for us. As I drive I wait with anticipation for Heavyness to raise his right hand up, signing for me to stop. As he jumps off his seat it is like watching a musical show on Broadway. There he dances and scratches around in the sand trying to imagine himself as the animal that has just walked passed. ‘Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life’ - Pablo Picasso.

As we walk down the road and into the bush following where and in which direction the animal has moved, the heart rate increases and our senses become finely tuned. It is a form of tunnel vision allowing us to focus on as if we were that animal, where would we go or what would we do. Tracking is all about using the environment to your benefit from birds alarm calling to seeing a toe of a lion in an old elephants track or to fresh urine dripping off a nearby branch from a dominant leopard scent marking. It is the exact same as artists need to understand their canvases, their paint, and their brushes, by understanding these it allows for masterpieces to be created.

As the paintings are being completed and the final signature is scribbled on the now vibrant canvas, the artist stands back to admire his work and reflect on the experience. There is no better experience than standing in the African Bushveld with one of my best friends, Heavyness, admiring our completed painting. Watching the leopard move away from us and continue on his journey and then to see the interpretations of our guest’s faces and emotions of the artwork along side of them, priceless. This is why I say that tracking is most definitely an art. ‘The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science’ –Albert Einstein.