Cougars and coyote

Duane, This is a better photo of the track. I posted the original photo because it showed both tracks together, even though the quality wasn't as good. The tracks are melted out some, however, with the relative size of pad and toes, as well as length of stride, I believe it to be a good sized lion.
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This is another photo angle of the site.
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The temperatures were mid thirties during the afternoons and high twenties at night. Close to freezing at time of photo.

Curt, I've heard similar reports. Two of the low country lions I've been trying to set up on seem to have vanished. I saw evidence of hound activity in one area. These all morning snow storms have made tracking difficult.
I hope you get a big tom this time around.
 
The initial pictures on this thread are defininately cat tracks. I run hounds on lion and see dog tracks next to cougar tracks on a regular basis. Those tracks surrounding the coyote carcass are cougar tracks, 100% guaranteed. Look at the size of the rear pad compared to the toes on those photos compared tp the wolf tracks posted later......see the difference??

As far as cougars killing coyotes, lions will kill it's competitors if given the opportunity......whether it's a coyote, fox, bobcat, and oft times even other lions. It is something I've observed on numerous occaisions. Sometimes they'll feed on the carcass afterward, sometimes they won't. I suspect it is something they are just hard wired to do.
 
Seeing the last pic makes me even more confident those are lion tracks. No doubt IMO.

Good luck connecting klicker. Looks like you got yourself a hot spot to call.

Good hunting
 
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I don't want to start a fire,but I think the track looks like a melted out canine track.
Wolves travel alot,and there nails get ground down,they are not always seen in a track.The toes in the pics to me look to pointed,and the rear part of the pad looks canine.Just what I see in the pic.
How warm was it prior to, and also when the pic was taken?



Duanne,,,,,,,,,With all respect.
I see ALOT of Wolf tracks (wish I didn't /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif but that's another topic) and they always have toenails. Just like a Coyote or Fido for that matter.
While Canine's toenails do get ground down, they grow back and aren't retractable like Feline's.
Some show the nails better than others, but you generally only have to follow for a yew yards to see them.
As you pointed out, melted tracks make distuinguishing the two alot harder, if not impossible at times.
 
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Thanks guys,
Based on experience, I will need some luck to close the deal. I plan to try calling the area later this week if conditions permit.
 
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Thanks guys,
Based on experience, I will need some luck to close the deal. I plan to try calling the area later this week if conditions permit.



Read this with interest earlier but didn't post. I tracked a good sized cougar in the snow on the weekend and he had quite elongated pointed toes, much like the ones in your pics. The one toe that is longer in each track is also a lion trademark on front foot tracks. Like an index finger etc. it shows whether the track is from the right or left foot.

We've got too much snow. Can't get off a plowed highway. I went to the east slope of the mountains on the weekend and found lion tracks. Floundered in snowshoes my first foray in the powder snow and carried them on my back on the hike out. Tracked one a ways and called but don't think I'd caught up enough for him to hear me.
 
Not to discount the knowlege of others, but most experienced houndsmen can determine the sex of a lion with a fair degree of accuracy just by looking at the shape of the toe pad. This comes by observing hundreds of tracks then by seeing the lion on the other end that made them. Females tend to have elongated toes while toms have round ones. A mature tom cougar is going to have toes the same size and shape of a quarter.....and a really big one closer to a fifty cent piece. It's tougher to tell when the cat is walking in deep snow and they have their toes spread, but in the photos, they seem pretty clear. My assessment is that the tracks you're looking at is that of a female lion.
 
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...experienced houndsmen can determine the sex of a lion with a fair degree of accuracy just by looking at the shape of the toe pad. This comes by observing hundreds of tracks then by seeing the lion on the other end that made them. Females tend to have elongated toes while toms have round ones.



CacheCreek, thank you. I've noticed the difference in toe shape but did not know the significance. So amend the pronoun in my post above from "he" to "it" or "she" in reference to the pointy toed lion I tracked recently.

Jim Corbett of India could tell the sex and age of a tiger or leopard by looking at its tracks, and would recognize that cat's and tell it from any other cat from then on. At least he claimed that as he described how he hunted man eaters and I think if most of us worked at it we could also. I've read that Arab trackers can tell the track, barefoot or shod, of every person in their village.
 
The second pic shows the track alot better,after seeing that I would have to agree that it is a lion track.I just wasn't sure buy just looking at the first photos.
 
We can't hunt with dogs here,But our season runs into spring.No I'm not done,I will hunt until the season ends.Then start agian as soon as it opens back up.I have work, and coyote dogs to train also.Cat hunting at times takes a "back seat".
 
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i read a study done in n.m. that ran over a decade


That must've been Hornocker's study. My wife and I were radio-tracking bighorn sheep in that area but left (graduated!) right as Hornocker was coming in. Did you find that study online or at the library in the journals?
 
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