Tracking
Tracking has to be the most relevant and useful of all required skills that rangers and military need to counter insurgencies in the bush environment. African Rangers possess phenomenal eyesight and if trained and coached correctly, rapidly improve their natural base skills to achieve amazing results.
​
Big5Protection currently offers 5 levels of tracking course leading to the advanced instructor level, where the most capable students are given the instructional techniques and confidence-building coaching to become instructors themselves.
​
2020 saw the creation and publishing of B5P’s Tracking Training Manual. This is the first of its kind, outside of military training publications. It addresses the needs of those trackers who have graduated through our tracking training program and presents them with everything they need to run courses. This includes all lesson plans, example course templates, instructions on how to run exercises and even tips and examples covering student report writing. It is written specifically for rangers and scouts in simple English with explanations and guidance to assist delivery.
​
Simon, Tom and Paul are all experienced and highly competent tracking instructors for Big5Protection. There are too few credible tracking instructors worldwide but suffice to say that there are many excellent tracking teams thanks to our continued instruction and the support to the units and organisations who request our services.
​
An overview by Simon Leak – I did my first formal tracking course in Brunei’s Jungle Warfare Wing (JWW) in 2001 and immediately recognised the significance of this much understated and underused skill. I joined others in a campaign to persuade the military to see this as a multi-environment skill that would be just as applicable in the Middle East as it was in the jungle. We were right, as it turned out. I went on to visit and study the tracking courses in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and across America and as such gained a wide knowledge of the different drills and methods used.
​
While delivering tracking training in Botswana my instructor partner, a colleague from our JWW days, and I, pulled apart the training pamphlets and looked again at the best methods to achieve the tracking aims in the varied bush environments. We came up with the good bits from all current and historical unit operations across continents and we added some new techniques that no-one else was doing. Since we went our separate ways, I’ve continued the development of the tracking courses we deliver at B5P.
​
The courses we run now are unique as far as the drills and methods used and the way we train/coach our students. Our trackers are faster in pursuit and more thorough in their search methods. Throughout the 5 levels of course, we identify those who can be further developed as instructors and have had great success at producing a league table of graded instructors across Africa. These individuals can assist us to run courses, or run courses under our supervision, in their own parks. This ensures the parks can conduct continuation training and further develop the skills in a cost-effective way.
​
Contact B5P for more details on the tracking courses provided….. anti poaching