Check Cat Tracks Twice
These feline tracks were found in central Vermont. The position of the four toes (front two not aligned side by side like canids), lack of nail marks, three lobes on hind edge of heel pad, and the overall shape of the tracks (more round than oval) confirm that they were made by a member of the cat family. The size of the tracks (2 ½” long, 2 1/4″ wide) falls right in between those of a Bobcat (1 ½” long, 1 3/8″ wide) and a Mt. Lion (3 ½” long, 4″ wide). The observer of the animal that left these tracks was confident that its overall shape, size, color and long tail were those of a young Mt. Lion.
There have been confirmed (DNA from scat, tracks) signs of these large cats in recent years in New England, as well as the body of a road-killed male Mt. Lion (Connecticut, 2011). DNA testing found that the animal was from South Dakota. Males seem to be moving into the Northeast, but a breeding population has yet to be established according to most biologists.
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Cougars in New England
Are there cougars/mountain lions/pumas/panthers/catamounts (all common names for the same species) in the Northeast? There have been many sightings in every New England state, but official Class 1 confirmation (body, photographs or DNA) only in Connecticut (2011), Massachusetts (1997) and possibly Vermont (1994-mixed DNA results). It depends on whom you talk to, but the consensus of most wildlife biologists is that there may not be a breeding population yet, but they are here (some thought to be of captive origin). There is no question that cougars are extending their range eastward. Through DNA analysis a cougar killed by a car in Connecticut in 2011 proved to have come from the Black Hills of South Dakota. It had traveled about 2000 miles to the East Coast over 2-3 years.
A recent sighting by a friend had me out on snowshoes recently, trying to find traces in the woods where she had had an excellent view of what she identified as a juvenile cougar crossing the road in front of her car. The pictured tracks are what I found and followed. They are definitely cat tracks! Further investigation revealed several sites where parts of a deer had been cached, with typical (of a cat) sheared deer hair (see photo insert) evident. Unfortunately, there was no scat to be found, so adequate DNA wasn’t available for analysis, and thus, it is but one of 50 to 60 reported-but-unconfirmed cougar sightings that Vermont gets each year. It may be officially unconfirmed, but there is no question in my mind which species of cat I was tracking. (Thanks to Squam Lakes Natural Science Center for cougar photo op.)
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A Bobcat’s White-tailed Deer Cache
Rabbits and hares comprise much of a Bobcat’s diet, but when prey is scarce or hard to capture, adult male or sometimes large adult female Bobcats will attack bedded, weak or injured adult White-tailed Deer. Bobcats often cache prey (such as a deer) that is too large to eat in one feeding, returning to feed on it for an extended period of time. They scrape up leaves, bark, twigs, soil. snow – whatever is available – and cover their prey. When feeding on a deer, Bobcats bite away the hair to avoid eating it, and this discarded hair is frequently mixed with the debris that the cat drags over the kill to cover it (see main photo – taken the day after the deer was cached), or is left windblown around the carcass. A characteristic sign of Bobcat feeding is the amount of hair strewn around the carcass and the lack of broken long bones (Bobcats don’t have the strength to break them with their teeth).
Typically a Bobcat rests near its cache to protect it, but it doesn’t take long for other animals to detect and take advantage of an easy meal. Within three days of this deer being cached, Coyotes and Common Ravens had discovered it, and both they and the Bobcat had eaten enough of it to expose the deer’s rib cage (see insert).
Other predators that occasionally cache and cover their kills include Mountain Lions, Black Bears and Fishers. Large caches found in the winter in the Northeast are likely to belong to a Bobcat or Fisher (Fishers typically cache and feed on deer that they find as carrion).
(Cache discovered by Lynn & Otto Wurzburg, who observed the Bobcat leaving after caching the deer; photograph by Lynn Wurzburg)
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