Paper short abstract:

Several native wild animals in southern Chile, particularly carnivores, show cryptic behaviours; despite this, different local people establish varied relationships with them. Registering and interpreting tracks and traces emerges then as a crucial aspect in these and in the resulting knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

The mountain areas of south-central Chile concentrate various national parks and private reserves, with neighbouring small-scale farmers and touristic services. Being an area with considerable autochthonous forest cover and 'wild' landscapes, it hosts an interesting variety of wild animals.

The area has historically registered the co-existence of humans alongside wild species, with relationships that go from evident indifference to acute wariness, particularly with medium and large carnivores. Even though some -like foxes- are seen more commonly, in general they show 'cryptic' behaviours, sustaining an 'absent-yet-present' condition regarding people.

Thus, those relationships rely little on sightings or close encounters, which are fleeting and brief. Instead, I argue that these animals are 'brought in' through the engagement with tracks and traces of their activities, as well as the dynamic casting and recasting of narratives about them. As Ingold (2010: S129) argues, footprints and animal tracks constitute clues of whereabouts and intentions, weaved through the process of "abductive reasoning" (Peirce 1955: 150-156) into explanatory micro-stories. Through this active engagement with the environment and its cues, knowledge emerges and puzzling events are faced, in a constant 'sense making' activity of people's life.

Consequently, farmers, park rangers and researchers weaved stories that connected at some points and that diverted at others, as their own life backgrounds and interests contextualized their approaches to those tracks and traces. Thus, their relationships with those 'phantasmagoric' animals were varied and shifting, mirroring the fluid character of those same environmental cues that provided the basis for their narratives.