Tracking Humans: A Fundamental Approach to Finding Missing Persons, Insurgents, Guerrillas, and Fugitives from the Law Kindle Edition

As the author disclaims frequently, this book won't make you a tracker. It offers some useful insights into reading tracks and signs in a way inexperienced trackers may not consider on their own. Compared to other tracking booms I have read, this book excels in story telling. The early chapters are punctuated with an engaging story that applies the concepts covered and breaks the slog that even well written books can become. The book gives pretty good advice on how to get started learning and practicing if you don't have an expert to teach you.The drawbacks are that the material is not very dense, and a lot of time is spent very technically explaining what is already general knowledge. Some of the figures are low enough resolution that the black/white doesn't communicate the concept, which would have been better served with illustrations.

David Diaz has given us an excellent overview (his own word for this book) of military tracking. Diaz took an exciting three day patrol by a very well disciplined US Special Forces team chasing infiltrators bent on contaminating a water source, and broke it into 4 or 5 sections. He wrote an excellent introduction. He inserted between the story's sections, explanations of the actions of the team, especially its 11 year veteran tracker, Badilla. He added a few excellent chapters on important aspects of tracking like: time since "Chase" passed, vegetation pointers, use of animal and insect species in the area, putrefaction times, examples of changes in feces both in terms of diet and of time. There is an excellent introduction to building your own tracking laboratory. He concludes with the military type detailed report on the mission described.The book is well written and entertaining. The details on aspects of tracking are very good and remarkably complete,. Diaz covers everything from being very fit, (various cardiovascular plus weight lifting pushups, situps, knee-bends, dips, chin-ups, and pullups, 3 - 4 times per week) to being well versed in the outdoor details of your area, to not smoking (it destroys the critical sensitivity of your sense of smell.).This is not a textbook on tracking. I think it would be an excellent book to give to novice trackers, as required reading in a tracking course, as motivation for intermediate trackers, and as entertainment for advanced trackers.While the cover of this book indicates it can be used for missing persons, and the book does gives occasional clues as to civilian tracking, if you are truly interested in looking for missing children, hunters, climbers, hikers, back packers, skiers, old folks who have wandered off, I would strongly suggest The National Association for Search and Rescue's text "Search is an Emergency: Text for Managing the Search Function" edited by Lavalla, Stoffel, Wade and Brady (last known 1995). It was produced and published by The Emergency Response Institute, commissioned by a sole source contract from The National Park Service, Albright Training Center, Grand Canyon, AZ. It has an instructor's guide also. Two more good, more recent and more available books, on civilian tracking are "Fundamentals of Search and Rescue" from NASAR (National Association for Search and Rescue) and "Wilderness Search and Rescue" by Tim Setnicka.The recommended reading list given us by Diaz is excellent and much more recent than "Search is an Emergency." Surprisingly, none of the above three books are included. I particularly liked his inclusion of the Tom Brown material, both the basic "Nature Observation and Tracking" and the very advanced "The Science and Art of Tracking." Several of the books Diaz lists are excellent for tracking of animals.Put into the above perspective, Diaz's "Tracking Humans" is an excellent and welcome addition to the literature. A good buy.

During my initial skim, I can tell that the author know his stuff, though the presentation is lacking. It's heavy on the conversational/storytelling writing style which is indicative of a first time author. Unfortunately teaching an art like tracking is an art within itself and can to a large extent can only be advanced through practice. Probably better off looking for military manaul or other free reference for self study.

This is a must read for every law enforcement, rescue and military personnel that is in the field. While there is no substitute for in person and field training this is a good refresher and reference source. Having grown up with a half American Indian best friend where we learned to track both animals and people almost daily for years it takes a lot of time and practice to learn the sulties to tracking. It is not something you can learn just from a book. I always seek to learn from any source I can.

I thought this was a book on how to find people like long lost relatives etc. It turns out to be a book on tracking footprints and such tru the woods! LOL I have not read it yet. Thought about sending it back but who knows, I do not know anything this topic at all, and not sure why or when it might be of use, however I decided to keep it and check it out.

This is a good book on man tracking. What you need to realize though is that it is the same book as Diaz's "Tracking Signs of Man, Signs of Hope." There are a few different illustrations, and some new info in the appendices, but if you've got the previous book, you've also got most of what is in this one.

This book was something totally new to me. I will have to use it as a manual.But my biggest takeaway was that I learned how to tell the wind speed. And what can you learn from insects presence and absence.Highly recommended!

There is no substitute for time in the dirt, for this almost lost skill set.

Interesting book, very well explained, but would be even better if they updated and used colour photo's instead of black and white

It switches between giving detailed and concrete information about tracking and telling a story where that information is used to provide context. By doing so it don't get too bogged down into the information, nor does it feel like reading a novel. I would recommend if you do ANY type of tracking as the skills in this book is transferable to both human and animal tracking.

This book is great for someone trying to learn a new skill, considering the situation of the times its well worth it. Great price, and very informative.

Sehr interessant geschrieben, sehr viel zu lesen. Das enthaltene Wissen ist gut verständlich dargelegt, vieles kann direkt im Wald oder Feld geübt und angewendet werden.

Great book loved the story between chapters lots of information good read and that’s coming from some one who generally doesn’t read at all