Our Instructor
- Home
- Our Instructor
OUR INSTRUCTOR
Matt Nelson
From the Arctic to the Antarctic, our instructor, Matt Nelson, has left footprints in search of wild animal tracks. Matt holds a Senior Tracker certificate from Tracker Certification North America (TCNA) and is a senior track and sign evaluator with TCNA meaning Matt is expert in wildlife tracking training all across North America.
Matt is a highly respected wildlife tracker with more than 20 years of experience in the backcountry. He has spent months in the Rocky Mountain researching and tracking mountain lions and has worked on numerous wildlife and research projects including the Gualala River Watershed council, the Garfield/Mesa Mountain Lion project and the East Bay Puma Project.
Matt is also a wolf expert and can be found during the winter in northern Wisconsin teaching trackers, biologists and naturalists from all over North America the art of tracking wild animals especially the king of wild animals… the wolf.
A lifetime hunter and woodsman, Matt is passionate about sharing his heartfelt respect for nature and love for all things wild and true. He is at once an intuitive tracker and a humble and gifted teacher – you can’t help but learn and be inspired after spending a weekend with Matt.
Your sponsors, Molly Theda and Terry Hunefeld have participated in many tracking trainings with Matt. We loved him and learned a ton. That’s why we’re bringing Matt to Colorado!
Who Is The Training Is For?
Whether you’re a biologist, educator, hunter, naturalist, outdoorsman or simply a person who is curious about the natural world, you’ll find this training to be eye-opening. No prior training is required to participate. In fact, the less you know, the more you will learn. The value of this training lies in the deep awareness all participants gain of animal sign and behavior.
Our Classroom Is The Outdoors
The entire weekend consists of in-the-field training. Our classroom is the outdoors. Our teachers are the animals themselves. Our instructor will locate animal track and sign and ask us what we think made the sign. We are then shown a different way to “see” the sign and learn how to interpret it. This simple question and answer process is repeated with different animal sign over and over throughout the weekend, enabling you to absorb the secrets of wildlife sign interpretation. The learning retention is deep and unparalleled.
