8/6/2023 0 Comments Bobcat vs cougar paw prints![]() I don't call nearly as many foxes and bobcats as I once thought I oughta in places with a lotta sign that also have lions in residence. Two lions also came in to that call- and the bobcat slinked off. In September, I had a bobcat show up to a fawn call and glass me from two hundred+ yards out. It seemed to be looking for and stalking gray fox tracks. I found a young lion's tracks in the snow here a month ago, about 3-1/2" spread on the prints. #853183 - 01/30/08 02:39 PM Re: Distinguishing juvenile cougar track from bobcat? Tracking big cats makes for interesting rambles in the snowy woods however it turns out. As ADC said, maybe a young one lost its mother and was was looking for companionship? Will probably never know now but will tuck it away as reference if I ever run across a similar track combo. The section of long stride still has me doubting my initial call of bobcat but that seems more likely than a really little cougar on its own. So, it's kind of a puzzle, like nature throws at us. He can chime in if he wants to say more about that. The lion hunter has seen bobcat tracks following a cougar. As ADC says, this would be an awfully small cougar. I've seen mama lion tracks with a couple of young whose tracks were 3/4 the size of their mother's. He reminded me that mama cougars don't usually kick out young ones till they are nearly as big as the mother. I've done some more thinking on it and talked by phone to one of the good lion hunters here on the forum. #853179 - 01/08/08 03:32 PM Re: Distinguishing juvenile cougar track from bobcat? Now I wish I'd photographed the small tracks because I have some bobcat track photos to compare. Any tips on how to distinguish bobcat from juvenile cougar appreciated. I feel a little foolish to have worked on those tracks for so long without realizing what the smaller cat track was. My son has tracked cougars a lot and he told me it sounded like a juvenile cougar that had been recently kicked out by its mother and was following her. Duh.Ī number of times I've found tracks of a mother cougar with kittens, close together, obviously a family. The last time I cut the tracks on a quarter mile hike in the forest, the "bobcat" tracks, always the same sized bobcat, were within two feet of the cougar's. At one place where I had a line of tracks, I thought that the bobcat had an unusually long stride, but decided it had run a few steps. Curiously, I also found bobcat tracks, sometimes 100 yards from the cougar, never closer than 40 yards, always fresher by many hours. I worked on the cougar track and cut it six times in the next four hours. 60 yards father I found tracks from an average sized cougar, not as fresh as the bobcat. I'm not the brightest bulb as I've demonstrated here occasionally, and over this past weekend while looking for cougar tracks I came on a medium sized bobcat track at least six hours old. Fortunately I had many tracks in sequence to evaluate. I'd tracked a bobcat the day before and though its pad was almost the same size, the bobcat made short strides when walking, with tracks much closer together than the juvenile cougar. From the length of stride I was confident that it was a young cougar recently booted out on its own. The first was the size of a large bobcat, travelling alone. ![]() Does anyone know how to distinguish a bobcat track from a small cougar track in a quick and sure way? Twice in the past few weeks I've run onto small tracks while looking for cougar in the snow. ![]()
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