Game Cam Surprise

[Husker95]

A friend of mine has a bunch of game cams on some property N of Canyon City and he brought this pic in to work today. Nobody had ever seen one before and we had to look it up - its a Coati. I think its pretty rare to see one. Your first thought is something escaped from the zoo!

[ray1970]

That is an odd looking critter. Wonder if if tastes like chicken?

[def90]

He's pretty far north..

[Irving]

That's pretty awesome. I saw a lot of critters while in 58 this year, but that was NOT one of them.

[Duman]

Is there a place you can submit the photo for identification? DOW? CSU?

[Firehaus]

Definitely not a coati. It looks like this. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring-tailed_cat


Sent from my iPhone

[bkincaid]

It's a ring-tailed cat, not too common but not really uncommon either. I've see quite a few while driving the Shelf Road between Canon City and Cripple Creek over the last 30+ years.

[Hummer]

A friend of mine has a bunch of game cams on some property N of Canyon City and he brought this pic in to work today. Nobody had ever seen one before and we had to look it up - its a Coati. I think its pretty rare to see one. Your first thought is something escaped from the zoo!

Ring-tailed Cats are neat critters but not often seen. I've heard reports of Ring-tailed Cats as far north as Ft. Collins, actually in the foothills west of the city. I've encountered them only at night, usually in my campsites in AZ, NM, near Moab, above Canyon City, and along the Colorado River outside grand Junction. One time I had a Ring-tailed Cat walk up my sleeping bag while I was in it. I had to back hand it to keep it from stealing a bag of gorp I was munching. It came back later and got away with the leftovers.

Btw, your picture is a Ring-tailed Cat, not a Coati, or Coatimundi, or Ring-tailed Coati; different animals.

[Husker95]

Thanks.....that's a good education. I didn't know these guys existed in Colorado. My friend has picked up some crazy pics/vids this year on this same camera: lions, lions with kittens, big-ass bear that tried to eat the camera, elk, fox, turkeys, etc. I look forward to work every Mon as he pulls his cards over the weekends and posts up his pics for all of us to see.