Tom Brown (naturalist)

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Tom Brown, Jr. was born on January 29, 1950 in Toms River, New Jersey, USA. He graduated from Toms River High School in 1968, but from the age of seven he was schooled in the arts of tracking, wilderness survival and awareness by an Apache elder and scout named Grandfather, or Stalking Wolf.[citation needed] Stalking Wolf died when Brown was 17. For the next ten years, Brown lived almost exclusively in the wilderness of the United States using few manufactured tools to survive.

When Tom Brown left the wilderness he had come to know so well, he set out to find people who were interested in the finely-honed skills he had developed through so much direct experience with the elements and nature. He met with little success, but eventually he was called on to locate a missing person, and since then he has been widely known as "the Tracker".

Building upon this reputation, Brown developed his profession as a full-time tracker by locating lost persons, dangerous animals and fugitives from the law. Brown's first book (The Tracker, published in 1978) chronicles these experiences. Reader's Digest ran a condensed version of the story and printed information about Brown's new Tracker School.

Today Tom Brown's Tracking, Nature and Wilderness Survival School is the largest school of its kind.[citation needed] The school teaches people from all over the world and from all walks of life who share an interest in learning the simplicity of an utterly natural way of living.

Brown has written 16 books to date. These include Grandfather, The Way of the Scout, and a celebrated series of wilderness field guides. Brown was also the technical advisor for the film The Hunted starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro.

Despite Brown's successes finding missing persons, tracking criminals, and preserving ancient wilderness survival skills in new generations of students, there are those who doubt Brown's claims. These doubts are based on lack of independent documentation on Rick (Brown's childhood friend who died at a young age), Stalking Wolf (a Native American who quested alone and disliked being photographed) and Brown's lone adventures away from society.

Dr. Jim Brown, a dean at Ocean County College in Toms River, New Jersey, and Chairman of the Board of the New Jersey Public Health Association, strongly disputes the above paragraph and verifies his brother's biography. "I remember Tommy taking me into the Pine Barrens when I was about seven, Tommy was ten. He perfected the art of 'deer smacking.' Tommy would slowly stalk up on a deer and smack it in the backside. It was truly spectacular to see. He would take nearly a half hour to slowly approach the deer. Tommy was amazing in the woods! He also fashioned a bone knife and killed a large buck with it, dragged it home and brain tanned the hide just as the Native Americans did. He actually wore the buckskins to Toms River High School despite the fact that they had a strict dress code at the time. It was like growing up with Daniel Boone! Tommy was probably the most amazing person I have ever met. As a younger brother I worshiped Tommy as all younger brothers do to their older brothers. I disliked Rick (Tom's friend) who at the time I felt, took Tommy away from me. Rick didn't like having me around when they were of on one of their adventures. Looking back this is quite a normal part of growing up. Tom had his friends and I had mine." Jim was very close to their maternal grandfather, William McLaughlin who died in 1960 and spent his spare time working with the homeless. "I resented Tommy calling Stalking Wolf 'grandfather' when our own grandfather had recently died. I didn't realize then what a wonderful impact he would have on Tommy's life. Tommy was close to Stalking Wolf, I was close to our maternal grandfather, it turns out they both had tremendous impacts on our lives. Stalking Wolf opened the world of nature to Tommy whereas "Grandpa" opened the world of public health to me." Tom's first book, The Tracker, is used in both elementary schools and in middle schools as a reader. "Tom was a true environmentalist before people even knew what Earth Day was. Tom learned to live in peace and harmony with nature and not the style of survival that you see today as reality TV. I think this is the compelling reason people see something very different and unique in Tom." Tom's brother jokes that he may have his Ph.D. in Microbiology but Tom has his Ph.D. in "the wilderness." "The world of nature is Tom's classroom, and Tom is the finest teacher I have ever met!"

Adding to Brown's mystique is the fact that his tracking skills go beyond what other professional trackers think is possible; Brown claims, for instance, to be capable of detecting a person suffering from a cold based on their tracks, or to be able to tell from the tracks when a person has turned his head.

This amazement is possibly best illustrated in the following quote by Ocean Township Police Lt. Scott Sprague who worked with Tom in 2003 to successfully find a missing boy (taken from "Expert Tracks Missing Child" by Erik Larsen, Asbury Park Press, 2003):

"Have you watched him (Brown) do this?" Sprague asked. "You watch him and you say to yourself, 'This guy is trying to pull the wool over my eyes. There's no tracks on the pavement to see. Who does he think he's kidding?' Yet, he was able to do in two hours what nine cops, a bloodhound and a guy in a helicopter could not do in twice that time."

[edit] External links

In the Media:

Articles Written by Tom for Mother Earth News:

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