FUNDAMENTALS OF SEARCH & RESCUE (SAR) MANTRACKING

Despite its prehistoric origins, the search for people based on track and sign remains a basic tool of great utility for all Search and Rescue operations.

Whether described as Visual Tracking, Track Awareness or anything else, Mantracking’s unique value to SAR lies in the way that it enhances the ability of search teams to save lives. Mantracking offers search operators the ability to confirm or refute the passage of human beings within an area.

Many think that police K9 Units or other dog handlers can definitively resolve all kinds of issues in the search for missing people. Frequently, however, this fixation has proved to be inadequate, a short-sighted approach akin to denying the utility of drones in search operations. Such narrow-mindedness is always detrimental to SAR operations. In this day and age, tracking, technology and dogs all provide excellent resources for finding missing people faster and more efficiently.

Within SAR, Mantracking is a relatively new resource but one that can be used at any time and in all environments, including mountains, deserts, farmland, industrial wastelands, wilderness, etc. SAR Mantracking is also possible in urban areas, where the residues of dust, grit, soil, puddles, etc, can all help trackers to identify the routes taken by missing people.

The ability to follow people by reading track and sign is not some myth, fable or mysterious gift, nor is it some arcane art used only by primitive tribes. It is, rather, a thoroughly modern resource totally suited to use alongside the most advanced search and rescue assets. It can be fully integrated with canine resources just as well as it can enhance the success of drones.

Using just three operators, a SAR Tracking Team can identify track and sign evidence from the earlier presence of human beings in a designated area, and then determine if this is associated with the missing person or not. Trackers can DISTINGUISH animal evidence from human and estimate WHEN the human was there, if the subject was INJURED, if they were accompanied, and even how quickly or slowly the subject was moving.

A SAR TRACKING TEAM can also discover possible overnight SHELTER LOCATIONS, DIRECTION of TRAVEL and much other information essential to finding people missing in remote areas.

After our training courses, SAR Tracking Teams find themselves looking at the countryside and the terrain in a new and meticulous manner that provides search parties with the skills needed to find the smallest details, viewing their surroundings subsequently in a more productive way.

NASAR – SAR TRACKING STANDARD COURSE

DURATION
5 days / 40 hours

METHODS
The course is taught using 25% theory and 75% practical exercises. Theory lectures are conducted in a classroom using Power Point. Practical exercises are held in the appropriate countryside and terrain.

Our teaching method is in accordance with the American NASAR (National Association of Search and Rescue) Tracking Program developed over the last 40 years by Albert ‘Ab’ Taylor, the famous American SAR Tracker. The training is intended to provide students with the maximum Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs) needed to make them TRACK AWARE.

PRE-COURSE SKILL REQUIREMENTS
None.

SUBJECT HEADINGS
Origin of NASAR
Mantracking’s modern uses
5 Tracking skills
Step by Step method
Sign Cutting
Ageing Track and Sign
SAR Mantracking & K9
Place Last Seen (PLS) procedures
Lost Spoor procedures
Recording track and sign

ABOUT NASAR
The National Association For Search And Rescue (NASAR) has been in existence since 1972. Originally set up to represent the State Search and Rescue Coordinators, NASAR grew to represent all SAR volunteers and continues to support the State Search And Rescue Coordinators Committee (SSARCC). NASAR uses standards developed by ASTM, NFPA, DHS, FEMA, and other respected bodies to build education courseware, publications, and certifications. Government agencies and non-profit Search and Rescue Teams use NASAR’s material and certifications to build certification programs for their organisations and produce highly skilled searchers who not only work within their communities but are also provide mutual assistance, regionally and nationally. NASAR is a Virginia Non-Profit and Federal 501 (C) 3 which welcomes your donations to assist us in training searchers for your community.

Since Albert ‘Ab’ Taylor (a WW2 veteran, former US Marine and Border Patrol Officer) joined NASAR in 1980, Mantracking has begun to expand within the SAR community and is now a specific part of the NASAR skill-set. In 1990, Ab Taylor and Donald C. Cooper wrote the first NASAR tracking book, ‘FUNDAMENTALS of MANTRACKING’, still considered as a milestone publication today.

Training, Certification, Advocacy. One voice. That others may live.

This is what NASAR all about, an American organisation staffed by ordinary people with a shared desire to help others. We are honoured to be a part of this great organisation.