So after all this "we get new pets"-excitement I decided to finally download the beta fully and look for beasts myself. I don't want to level so I won't spoil my live experience, but a few of the new pets are 85 so I thought I'd try them. I'm very fond of cats so I wanted to try Savage. I found tracks right next to the path here on the right side of this tree:

- WoWScrnShot_073112_175753.jpg (405.14 KiB) Viewed 3324 times
The tracks were directing behind Findu (across the path) but I lost them there, I went back and saw them continue in two different directions one where my arrow points to on the map, the other more to the left. I followed those to the right first but they ended dead, then I went back and took a turn to the left, flaring ahead of me. The servers were a bit laggy so I suddendly find my poor waterstrider being nommed at by a tiger. I dismiss the waterstrider and the tiger loves to nom me instead. I hit tame (after finding the right button) and without much difficulty he's mine. I wasn't even close to being hurt or dying, so I guess people with higher levels who WANT to grief a hunter can easily kill this beast without trouble while the hunter tries to tame.
The search took about 30 minutes in total with two lost tracks and one with success. But I had to follow the tracks backwards (I think you mentioned Savage was an exception from walking backwards, Kalli, but he wasn't for me!). He didn't hit very hard and didn't interrupt my tame. In the screenshot Savage alias Whisper was already at my side, so don't wonder. And I'm playing on EU server.