(http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj319/kittitiny/I1361637548.jpg)
mens extra large glove--some melt
Looks like a cat to me.
picture is very small, but looks to be a lynx or large bobcat
I've done my fair share of hunting bobcats and tracking them and if that is a bobcat it's gigantic. Up here in NY a big cat is 40 lbs and the track of one that size is around the size of a 'skoal' can. That's a general rule, but like humans sometimes big cats have small feet and sometimes small cats have big feet. Did you find the track in PA?
couger.
God bless you, Steve
Looks like a Lynx they usually have a similar track with the mountain lion, but this looks smaller than a mountain lion. The pads on both tracks will normally equal about half of the tracks size. But it is a small picture so it is hard to tell.
The pic is small, and the track looks to have a little melt to it. If there are claw marks, it's definitely a dog track. Wolf or someone's large pet.
I say a coyote I have seen similar tracks in mud in southern Arkansas.
Looks like a kitty, but quite large for a bob.
My moneys on a cat, Lynx or bobcat
Lorax? Possibly a Snark... Very small chance of a sneech.
:D
Mike, Bentpole sent me that pic today. I still think Bob Cat. Was that at the camp?
Nittany Lion :thumbsup:
Lynx
Its a canine track.
if you can dissect the foremost toes and the rear toes through the center of the toes with two parallel lines its canine. If you place a grid on a cat track, no toes are on the same plane.
Its hard to tell from the pic for sure, but it looks like the front of the heel pad is convex which is indicative of canine.
Freezing and thawing tracks can grow quite large over time.
Trap
The photo is very small, but there appear to be no claw marks, the two front toes look uneven (not sitting side by side) and the foot pad appears to have three rear lobes (not two). This means it's a cat, not a dog. I'm told a typical mountain lion track in snow is about the size of a human hand with the fingers bent at the knuckles. It looks much smaller than that, so I'll cast my vote for bobcat or lynx.
i also posted on a trapping site--and the concensus[here and there] was huge male bobcat-and it was my first thought--no open season in NJ-so i suppose a bob cat could really fill in!
i know there was some melt too--but the tracks were in a very shadey evergreen section of road[seasonal] in stokes state forest--i wish we saw him!!thanks guys
Quite similar image with glove and lynx track under google search 'Lynx tracks in snow"
It could be a huge bobcat but it is 2 3/4 to 3 inches across if that is a large glove. That would be a really big one; However I have seen them that big in S. Eastern Oregon. I killed one that was 54 inches from base of ears to base of tail. I saw another in the freezer at Denio that was 68 lbs so they can get really big.
God bless, Steve
Certainly not definitive lack of experience, however interesting.
Click on 'X'
(http://images.imagelinky.com/1361678189.pptx) (http://images.imagelinky.com/1361678189.pptx)
its an extra lg glove steve--at least3-1/2-4" across--being in the northeast i lean towards big bobcat--but there are some guys within 5 mls that swear that they have lions--if it was a more secure spot i'd put a trailcam--but this spot is out of the question--biggest cat track i've ever seen!!gotta be brute!!lol---he's off limits in NJ[where i got picture]--even in PA [a few miles away]there is a one cat limit
I would still put my bets on a lion. It is possible for it to be a huge bob though. Certainly possible to be a lynx . If you have lion reports locally then I would tend toward that. It looks like every lion track I have ever seen and that is a lot of them . Used to do a lot of hounding.
God bless you all, Steve
Small lion or big bob or lynx. No claw marks to be a dog or wolf ect.
(http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo352/KMEsharp/mikestrack.jpg)
I blew it up as best I could Mike and I think Trap is right... Looks like a canine to me too. I know where you were though, and finding a cougar track up there wouldn't surprise me one bit. :thumbsup:
Ron
http://www.bear-tracker.com/coyote.html
http://www.bear-tracker.com/bobcat.html
heres canine and bobcat tracks--looking at these pictures--i'm again leaning towards cat
while we are at it--heres the cougar page
http://www.bear-tracker.com/cougar.html
Bobcat. Shorter and fatter as opposed to longer and skinnier like a coyote. Retracted claws(cat) vs. clawmarks in snow(dog).
canine. Probably domestic dog, possibly coyote
I'm callin kitty of some variety...
A lot of things happen to tracks as they deteriorate. Claw marks and heel pad definition are the first to go during the freezing and thawing process. Over time the track gets bigger and bigger.
You can tell this track has been through several freezing and thawing cycles. The toes appear to me to be pointed enough to give evidence that originally there were toenails present but over time they have melted away and each toe has taken on a bit of a teardrop shape.
I agree that the track appears too "round" to be a coyote or wolf, but the the way the toes are aligned with the heel pad screams canine to me. Just doesn't look cat-like to me. Domestic dog maybe.
Trap
Definitely a Unicorn!
More often than not, I id a track in the snow more by the length and width of stride, how deep it goes in the snow, etc. because the pads and other details are obscured.
Do you have any pics or remembrance of those traits ?
Interesting track though. I can't make out the pad details. I'd have a hard time calling it a lynx though. The pads are all hair in the winter and don't leave tracks half as defined as this one is. And the heel pad on a lynx is very small. Lynx step patterns (one track to the next) are very side-to-side compared to canids, almost look clumsy or half-drunk.
WITH some melt i'm sure it could be a BOB CAT . IF it is Nittany Lion, then it is PROBABLY a large male looking for a small male.
I like Traps explanation of the track. Very logical veiw of it.
We will never know till you go back follow any new tracks like it and get a picture of the last track made because the animal making it will be in the track.
I almost choked after the Nittany lion comment....
The old rule of thumb, and one I always found accurate, is that with a cat track you can draw an "X" with the center two toes between the top of the "X" the outside two toes to either side of the top legs of the "X" and the pad of the track between the bottom legs of the X, without touching the pad, on a canine track the "X" will either cover part of the pad or not lay between the toes - I hope this is clear.
I still think it's a domestic dog - claws may be short or not show - they don't always show, depending on mud/snow depth or how the animal is moving.
Here's a lion track. (http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa328/brockman2/thailand3001.jpg)
Looks like a wookalore to me!
Canine. TRAP nailed it.
Looks like the tracks my Beagle makes.. :dunno:
Maybe a small T-Rex! :scared:
Wouldn't a dog leave nail marks? That's why I think cat..... :dunno:
looks like a large male bobcat
If I had to bet I'd say bobcat..just because it's more rounded.
way to melted out to make a positive id, but if i was to asume...i would asume it was a canine.
dog or coyote?
Here is a picture of a 50# lion kitten track
(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a140/jbrandenburg/Trapping2012179.jpg)
A female lion track
(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a140/jbrandenburg/Trapping2012133.jpg)
Front foot of a 154# male lion.
(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a140/jbrandenburg/Trapping2012215.jpg)
Well aren't we a sad bunch! :knothead: ... Expert outdoorsmen and women and we can't tell if it's a dog or cat track! :biglaugh:
Ron
excerpt from Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey 'The eastern cougar was listed as endangered by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1973, although it was thought to have already been extinct as early as the 1930's. In 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the species extinct. However, in June 2011, a 2-5 year old male cougar was struck and killed by a car in Connecticut. It is believed that this individual roamed over 1,500 miles from the Black Hills region of South Dakota based on DNA evidence. Big cats are very wide-ranging animals that can cover a great deal of distance in a relatively short amount of time as they search for prey, mates, or their own territory.'
Therefore likelyhood of cougar is as close to zero as you can get.
Linx are more northern, they rely on snowcover to overtake prey like rabbits etc.
As to bobcat vs canine, I think TRAP nailed it as well. The symmetry of the print says canine to me. The track is also not fresh so you can't necessarily expect to see claw marks. They could have filled in with light flurries or blowing snow, or melting could have merged them with the rest of the print.
As someone said, tracking is much easier when considering stride and depth of print than size alone. Size changes, track spacing doesn't. A big bobcat is a small coyote, my guess is this would shed light on the situation. Another easy one here is if it goes up a tree it s cat. If you follow the track for an hour and it never leaves the ground, I'd be thinking canince more and more.
This is exactly what I like about tracking. One track and 50 different interpretations...
It's good to realize substrate, conditions, etc can all affect a track and make Identification tricky. Even an expert tracker can be humbled and misidentify something.
The important thing is not to always be right about each track you see, but to always learn something from each track you see. And to be open to the possibility that you might be wrong and might need to revise your hypothesis when you find more information further down the trail.
its a tough call --but the reason i lean towards cat of some kind of cat[probably bobcat]----is the rear of the center pad is three lobed and straight across and in the canine drawing the center lobe is also three lobed BUT.. depicted as decidedly foward--also the canine tracks tend to be longer and narrower
http://www.bear-tracker.com/coyote.html
http://www.bear-tracker.com/bobcat.html
thanks for the input guys and as farmer marley says the most important thing is to keep learning
my 9yr old is real interested in tracks so it was fun to be out and looking at a weeks worth of tracks in the snow
The melt will skew the ID some. Could be bobcat/lynx/canine. I'd be surprised as heck if that was a cougar being west of the Mississippi like you are.
Neighbors dog using your yard again!