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Posted by Cdog911 (Member # 7) on January 14, 2005, 03:37 PM:
Cal, Found this track today leading into a deep cedar-choked creek channel.
That's a .22-250 casing beside it for reference. It's on ice/ frozen snow and sunk in about 1-2-inch, it had three fairly discernable lobes to the back edge of the tarsal pad.
Does this look like cat or dog to you?
Posted by Rob (Member # 75) on January 14, 2005, 03:45 PM:
Feline.
Posted by Lonny (Member # 19) on January 14, 2005, 04:07 PM:
Cat.
Just to be certain, I compared your pic to some pics that I have taken of known lion tracks and they look the same.
Posted by Cdog911 (Member # 7) on January 14, 2005, 04:10 PM:
But,... there aren't lions in KS. Just ask the guys with the state. Now I am confused.
Funny thing, the whole area was crisscrossed with buttloads of deer and coyote tracks, and this is the only track of this configurationt that I could find because whatever made it stayed in the truck tracks down the road, but it stood right out and got my attention as I walked by.
Thanks for the input so far.
Posted by GUTPILE (Member # 448) on January 14, 2005, 05:44 PM:
Cat, no toenails.
Posted by Krustyklimber (Member # 72) on January 14, 2005, 09:10 PM:
It does look exactly like the tracks in the snow Bearman Rick showed me, only bigger, which were lion tracks.
The cat tracks we saw also stayed directly in our tire tracks, and if it wanted to cross over to the other wheel track, it did so in a single bound.
Footprints in the snow will grow some with time and sun, how old do you figure those were, and what kind of sun exposure did they see?
Pretty cool, I hope you get to see it.
Krusty 
Posted by Cal Taylor (Member # 199) on January 15, 2005, 04:47 AM:
Call in the Hounds!!!!!
I'd guess a cat, but I've been wrong before, (if you don't believe that, ask my wife). Sometimes it is hard to tell with a snow track. I once followed a pyranese guard dog track for a few hundred yards before I could be sure it wasn't a huge lion track, so from one track it's hard to be sure, but I'd sure guess it to be a lion. Maybe another from the Black Hills of South Dakota, I know Kansas already had one of those this year.
Posted by Cdog911 (Member # 7) on January 15, 2005, 05:52 AM:
Thanks, Cal.
This place is stinkin' with big cats. The one in Lawrence was "confirmed" through epithelial DNA found in droppings. Of course, KDW&P poo-poo'd that as planted evidence or an escaped pet. Two have been killed just over the border in MO in the KC area, one just over the border in NE near Omaha, one on the KS/OK line that was apparently hit by a train, and of course, CO is so full of them you can't swing a dead cat by the tail without hitting another one. But, and we thank God every day for this, they have all met their untimely demise just inches and moments before crossing the line into Kansas.(that one by OK was CLOSE!) God save us if they ever breech our perimeter.
KDW&P has changed their stance from the old position that "we do not have cougars in Kansas!" to, "We do not have conclusive evidence to demonstrate the presence of cougars in Kansas." Yet, every time we show them a track or a video or a picture, they want DNA. When we give them DNA, they say it's a pet. If I ever see one, I'm not going to kill it, but I'm damned sure gonna wing it enough to collect some blood, then get someone in regular law enforcement with some brains to help me secure the blood and submit it for testing once and for all. Hell, I might just kill it and stick it in my freezer, then see if the urban legends about inerperitoneal transmitters are true. If the stories are accurate, I should have a game warden on my front porch inside an hour.
Then again , the stories are great. For instance, just a mmonth ago, a guy told me someone who is related to a guy he works with ( ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
) shot one attacking their cattle. They called the local CO who came to their farm where he rolled the tarp back off where it lay in the bed of their truck, grabbed it and dragged it to his truck and drove off without saying a word. Hmmmmmmmm. This guy was surprised I didn't believe him. Well, first off, as usual, nobody had any pictures. Don't you think if you were the first person to whack a cougar in Kansas in over a hundred years, that you could find a damned camera to take one picture? Apparently not. And don't you think that if you whacked the first cougar in a hundred years and had the physical evidence to put the debate to rest once and for all that the CO would have either one or a thousand questions to ask you? The last thing I'd expect is for him to load it up and drive off without saying so much as a word. Go figure
My only ***********, er, misgiving, was that it might not be round enough, yet at the same time, it sure looks like a cat. For purposes of bragging rights, I agree with you. Thanks again for the reply, and to the rest for your input as well.
[ January 15, 2005, 05:53 AM: Message edited by: Cdog911 ]
Posted by Steve Craig (Member # 12) on January 15, 2005, 10:41 AM:
I will say a dog. Pic is not very clear. Looks like a toe nail mark above the right toe. Also the upper pad seems too round and doesnt show a double lobe. I cant see the tripple lobe on the botton either. I can be wrong. Tracks will fool you sometimes. Poop almost never does.
Steve
Posted by Cdog911 (Member # 7) on January 15, 2005, 11:09 AM:
Steve, Using the information at this site that was sent to me late this morning,
http://www.cougarsanctuary.org/tracks.html
I would have to lean toward dog as well. I'd never really noted the indention in the anterior tarsal pad, but I went to a fur sale here in town and was able to look over a half-dozen bobcat hides with their feet attached and, by golly, they're there. Good eyes. Thanks. To all.
Posted by Curt2u (Member # 74) on January 15, 2005, 02:22 PM:
I'm going to say dog. It appears to have only one lobe at the front of the plantar pad and normally a cougar track is either more round overall or wider than it is long. Most dog tracks do show toenails but in an old track or one on hard snow they may be tough to see, especially if only a couple tracks are available. The stride of a large dog and cougar will be close to the same but the gait will be different too.
I bought a book years back I think was called "mammal tracking". It has a wealth of info on many types of animals. Highly recommend it. There is plenty of the real thing out there to see too though. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Good hunting
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