Help me identify these tracks.

[OtterbatHellcat]

I was gonna go with Bobcat/Cougar...and Bear. But why the hell aint the bear sleeping in his hole right now?

[def90]

I was gonna go with Bobcat/Cougar...and Bear. But why the hell aint the bear sleeping in his hole right now?

I saw a bear raiding a dumpster in steamboat just before xmas..

Bears are not "true" hibernators, they go through a stage of sleep and metabolism drop but are capable of getting up at any point in time if they want to.

[brutal]

I was gonna go with Bobcat/Cougar...and Bear. But why the hell aint the bear sleeping in his hole right now?

Which is it OBC?

The correct answer was BOTH.

[OtterbatHellcat]

Which is it OBC?

The correct answer was BOTH.

Yeah yeah....I was just trying to win some prize money too.. Honestly, otter really did cross my mind, but to my puny and untrained tracking brain, the possibilities were too vast to call out otter, and I would have thought an otter would have had more tail dragging in between the paw prints like when he went into or out of the creek.

Showcasing my shitty tracking abilities, I would guess the otter came from the woods, and then entered the creek.

[Hummer]

Yeah yeah....I was just trying to win some prize money too.. Honestly, otter really did cross my mind, but to my puny and untrained tracking brain, the possibilities were too vast to call out otter, and I would have thought an otter would have had more tail dragging in between the paw prints like when he went into or out of the creek.

Showcasing my shitty tracking abilities, I would guess the otter came from the woods, and then entered the creek.

Well, that photo doesn't give you a lot, not as if you'd seen the scene in person. I spotted the track early in the morning from the dining room window of the cabin and knew from the slide down the snow into the open pool that it had to be either a beaver or an otter. The tracks weren't there the night before. At that point I had never seen an otter on the St. Vrain but my neighbor/tenant had spotted one earlier in the fall. When I went outside to look I could tell immediately that they were otter tracks because the pattern of 2 x 2 leaps were just like those of other mustela species, weasels and pine martens, which I see fairly often, but the 2-3.5 ft. spacing was much longer, as expected for an adult river otter.

Seconds after I took the photo I spotted an otter swimming in a pool below. Got a couple quick shots but the camera battery died. Here's a little better view of the tracks of the otter leaping over the snow from the right to left then sliding into a pool. The tracks going straight away are from a squirrel.



The snow is 3-5 ft. deep over the river. In winter otters typically travel in the water and under the snow and ice, sometimes for several hundred yards, then emerge to leap over snow banks from pool to pool. Sometimes they leave the river to forage some way into the forest for prey such as rabbits, hares and squirrels. Mostly, otters stay in and along the river. Last time I saw otter tracks there was in November.

In summer I spotted two adult and three juvenile river otters on a family outing. Neat animals! Now, every time we go to the cabin I constantly scan the water for another view.

An adult in water:





A curious baby river otter:





The water is ice cold and juvie otters don't have the insulation that adults do. Otters shiver when they get cold just like we do.





All tuckered out and catching some warming sun.





Keep on tracking, fellas!