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300 pound bear my dad shot today

  • Thread starter Clint
  • Start date
  • #21
archery season opens earlier than rifle and the dates for both vary quite abit from state to state.

Ozzy, speed goat is a pronghorn/American antelope

No bear is endangered in North America. the grizzly is protected and no hunting allowed in the lower 48 but in Canada and Alaska thay have healthy populations that can sustain regular hunting. i hve seen wild grizzlys myself in Glacier park, a sow and her cub, but i was a mile away looking through binoculars. close encounters do happen though. in Montana you MUST pass a bear identification test before you can purchase a black bear tag. if you shoot a grizzly hat wasnt causing you harm(and they have investigators on payroll to look into such things) your in trouble, big trouble. infact there is a joke about waiting until there are teeth marks in yah before pulling the trigger on a griz.
 
  • #22
I found these tracks yesterday while I was in the woods. Are they from a bear?

19749977O181695624.jpg

19750140O630253091.jpg


That is a dime I put there for a size reference.
 
  • #23
not a bear. not quite sure what it is but it looks strange, first thought is dog but everything is out of proportion(toe pads bigger than the "heel" pad) mind if i borrow the pics? i can probably get you an answer on another board.
 
  • #24
Sure, you can use the pics. When I saw I was very sure it wasn't a dog. When I was looking at it in person, it looked bigger than the pic. Even with the dime there it doesn't seem to acuratly show the true size of it. If it wasn't a dog or bear, then what else could it be? They are the only animals in the are that have padded feet with claws, that I'm aware of anyway.
 
  • #25
after looking through some of my books my best guess would be a large red fox made the tracks. they have toe pads larger than their heel pads and the size looks to be right if the fox is a bit larger than average.
 
  • #26
Wait, I forgot about panthers, could it be a panther?

I looked up pics of bear footprints and you're right, there is no way it was a bear.
Here is a bear track.

IMG0029_L.jpg


I'll go look up panthers and see if it's a match.
 
  • #27
Rattlermt: I assume you've already looked at this possibility so what rules out a coyote?
 
  • #28
I found this chart and it doesn't seem to match any of them.


Tracks
 
  • #29
Nflytrap, I'm not really sure that we have Coytes here, but on the chart I just posted they list coyetes and it doesn't really match.
 
  • #30
tracks.jpg


Common Animal Tracks

The numbers next to the animal's name correspond to the number next to the animal's track.

1. Moose 2. Elk
3. Mountain Goat 4. Bighorn Sheep
5. Deer 6. Pronghorn Antelope
7. Horse 8. Domestic Cat
9. Large Dog or Wolf 10. Coyote
11. Red Fox 12. Mountain Lion
13. Badger 14. Striped Skunk
15. Long Tail Weasel 16. Beaver
17. Muskrat 18. Rock Chuck
19. Pine Squirrel 20. Deer Mouse
21. Meadow Vole 22. Shrew
23. Black Tailed Jackrabbit 24. Cottontail Rabbit
25. Raccoon

Do you think that the print I saw matches number 9?
 
  • #31
You better start loading silver bullets into that gun you carry.
 
  • #32
skunk ape prints...definitly skunk ape prints.
 
  • #33
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I found these tracks yesterday while I was in the woods. Are they from a bear?
I'd say it's a big dog. Obviously the tracks were made when the mud was soft, and I'm pretty sure dogs walk more on their toes than on their "heels" so the mud would have expanded more in the toes because of the extra weight.  The drying of the mud could have also deformed it.
besides, it was walking forward...
 
  • #34
general consensus from the guys on the hunting forums is its a canine of some sort most likely a domestic but could be a coyote, hard to tell and tracks made in that type of mud make it a pain. it looks to be the same clay type gumbo we have aroung here.
 
  • #35
It looks to me like there are nail impressions.  So I'd say any member of the feline family is out.  Their claws are retracted.  So that would leave something dog-like that has nails instead of claws.  Looks like it puts its weigh more heavily on the toe pads that the foot pad.

----------

Guess I should have looked at the chart first. I think it looks just like the coyote track. Notice how the front two toes are very close together with the nail marks very close together and turned slightly inward (just like in your photo). Back two toes are on the same level across from one another. I would say its a hind-foot print since the foot pad is smaller than on the the front paw like in your pic.
 
  • #36
How about one of those red wolves released in coastal Carolina several years ago? Did any survive?
 
  • #37
I was reading about that just last nite. It was very interesting. The red wolf actually became extinct in the wild. There was a concerted effort to get them reintroduced. There were a number bred and then released into North Carolina in a north eastern area. However there is concern that there will be interbreeding with eastern coyotes (they can interbreed) which would dilute the purity of the red wolf, thereby endangering the whole project to keep the red wolf in existence. So they are trying to prevent the two from interbreeding.

So there are both coyotes and wolves in N.C.
 
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