[cantrevealname]

I wonder how the government officials were able to track him for decades? The Man of the Hole moved at least 50 times during that period in an area of 31 square miles (8,000 ha), which is one-third bigger than the land area of Manhattan. We see news reports about searching for lost hikers or campers, who want to be found, involving dozens of officials, volunteers, and dogs scouring the wilderness for days or weeks without success. Yet the Brazilians officials have been able to locate him many times.

I wonder if they are using some sort of aerial surveillance. Maybe looking for heat signature from a fire at night? (Assuming he knows about or even needs fire.) Or perhaps trail cameras placed all over his territory. In a YouTube video the officials are seen giving him an axe and other gifts. A GPS locator hidden in the handle of the axe? I don't believe that's the answer, but thinking about all the nature videos I've seen in which GPS trackers are attached to birds, whales, mountain lions, and even house cats wandering the garden, it is at least technically doable.

Hopefully there are some outdoorsmen here on HN who can shed light on how the tracking might be done.

[aflag]

The difference is that hikers die quickly and they are lost, randomly walking around. This guy was not lost, so he probably had preferred spots where he'd like to go for food, water, etc. Besides, he made large holes and possibly made other changes to his environment that made him easier to spot. Also, even if he was not spotted for months or a year, he'd be completely fine (maybe even thankful). So, time is always on the side of whoever is searching for him.

[abarro]

I've read somewhere that it's FUNAI agents with help of other tribes living in the region.

There is some hint to that in the Wikipedia entry: "They observed that he periodically moved his home, building straw huts for shelter. He hunted wild game, collected fruits and honey, and also planted maize and manioc. Over the years, more than 50 huts built by him were identified by FUNAI."

[sangnoir]

> I wonder how the government officials were able to track him for decades?

I can think of 2 major differences between locating him vs hikers:

1. Less time pressure as the government could wait weeks/months between locating him. Finding him once in a 3 month window is a success, finding hikers after 3 months would likely be for the purposes of recovering remains.

2. Hikers usually don't construct multiple semi-permanent structures that can be identified from the air (holes, animal traps, shelter)

[tomblebomble]

He probably lit fires often. From the air, the smoke from a fire (even with a fairly large area of forest to search) likely wouldn't be too hard to make out.