What kind of tracks are these?

[peshewah]

My son and I were walking the river looking for a good place to fish for small mouth and seen these tracks. They were 3.5" wide. They might be just a dog track, I don't know. Kinda of the beatin' path for a dog. I will try to post a picture.

[BigStewMan]

RUN MAN! Them are from Bigfoot.

[J.4knee]

hmm they look quite a bit like Canine prints but 3.5 in is pretty big, maybe a big GSD, they are big enough to be a Mountian Lion or Cougar, but the back pad looks more like a Dog than a Cat as do the way the side toes are more along the side of the pad rather than in front of it. JMO YMMV.

[peshewah]

Maybe Bigfoot, probably a dog. The river is about 75 yards from our house. We hear all kinds of sounds at times. But the tracks were so large it made my imagination run.

J.4knee, Big Stew, thanks for the response.

We did find the small mouth. Had to wade the water. My 8 year old son ended up swimming so I had to as well. Cold cold cold water but we had fun.

[oscarsear]

If you lived where I do (Idaho) you'd be rightfully concerned about wolves. They were reintroduced into the wild several years back and they are thriving.

[jacksonbart]

Its a sweaty tired midget in an Ewok costume.

[Islander]

If you lived where I do (Idaho) you'd be rightfully concerned about wolves. They were reintroduced into the wild several years back and they are thriving.

I just read a piece online about how reintroducing the wolves to Yellowstone Park has had the effect of helping to restore some of the trees and other vegetation, since the elk no longer hang around and graze the saplings right down to the ground as soon as they appear. Now some of the meadows are looking like they used to and it's a big improvement. It apparently was a big mistake to eliminate the wolves so many decades ago.

[winchester21]

Janet Reno????

[Chris A]

I just read a piece online about how reintroducing the wolves to Yellowstone Park has had the effect of helping to restore some of the trees and other vegetation, since the elk no longer hang around and graze the saplings right down to the ground as soon as they appear

There is a really good Blu-Ray disk out on Yellowstone (BBC-Two) that has three episodes - winter, summer, and (you guessed it) autumn. This was one of the most enjoyable nature videos that I've ever seen. The video is really stunning. It doesn't hurt that it is a U.S. national park--the world's first. Yellowstone is apparently the caldera of an ancient volcano, - really high (8K+ feet altitude) and really cold in the winter (-40, etc.), surrounded by the Rockies.

Okay, back to the (off-topic) topic: The wolves drive the elk around, who don't have time to eat all the cottonwoods/willows around the ponds, thus allowing for an explosion of beavers making their habitat ponds, thus providing an almost exponential increase of birds, fish, bears, and tourists, etc. I'm not really a treehugger but in this case the ecological system effect was really amazing.

However, the local farmers/ranchers surrounding Yellowstone are not amused, since their livestock is disappearing. The video implies that the ranchers merely "scare off" the wolves with gunfire. [:^)]

Back on topic: Wolves and dogs are the same species (Canus Lupus). Wolf tracks probably look the same as really big dogs. Note however that wolves travel in packs unless they are under severe duress or they are wandering males looking for, well, you know... Coyotes also have very similar tracks, but are usually much smaller. But they can live on the edge of even the largest cities and forage anywhere, usually at night. They typically don't bother humans.

Chris

[J.4knee]

Janet Reno????

C'Mon WC21 you knwo those are not JR's foot prints we've had numerous sightings on record of her footprint over the decades

[mark1101]

Could be a 9-band armadillo. https://www.msu.edu/~nixonjos/armadillo/

[Chris A]

Canis Lupus Familiaris (probably Great Dane-sized or similar) [:-*]

(I guess that I need to shout in order for that MWM-K402/TAD guy to hear. Hearing loss seems to be an occupational hazard of Jub owners.[<)]

Chris [&]

[peshewah]

Its a sweaty tired midget in an Ewok costume.

Looks like one of my old girlfriends.

[BigStewMan]

all i can say is that if i saw those prints, i'd immediately start doing The Safety Dance.

[J.4knee]

all i can say is that if i saw those prints, i'd immediately start doing The Safety Dance.

you can dance if you want to...

[peshewah]

I'll give it a try.

[winchester21]

there are several animal track ID websites kicking around somewhere- had a similar situation on a NC mountain hunting lease- deer chewed to pieces near a lake- suspicious tracks all around - not a dog. took the printout and closely compared the printout to the track- mountain lion- not supposed to be any in NC- several sightings on a nearby golfcourse. Then several years later some TV show- Monster quest- I think- caught one on a game camera at night. So much much for the wildlife dept claims of no cougars in NC.

tracks can be extremely difficult to ID unless you have a pic in hand to compare

[peshewah]

Winchester, I was hoping you would respond. Here in the Ozarks you hear the same thing from the Conservation Dept. They say there is no cougar in this area but there was one killed in Branson Mo( Around that area) a few years ago. And our lady who lives down the road said she seen one. She live right on the river. Her husband says she is crazy LOL. But hell who knows what comes up and down them rivers at night. I've heard some pretty wild stuff myself.

[Islander]

We have lots of cougars on the Island, but one suburban sighting turned out to be a large tawny-coloured housecat. It was some distance away, making it hard to judge the actual size. That was the reason given for the confusion.

[dtel]

This is closer to a Cougar print. []