Things have been very slow here lately so decided to do some more scouting. Lack of snow and warm weather have made tracking very difficult as the sun usually melts the details in the track rather quickly. Any clue as to what these might be? The first set are about 1 1/2"- 2" and may be bobcat but whatever it was decided to turn and walk back over it's tracks. I could only find a few track as they disappeared off the trail where there was no snow.

This next set I'm thinking may be Fisher but thought the loped more like mink.


Experts, any opinions?

Top looks like a fox, but hard to tell for sure, the bottom could be a rabbit, but not familiar with fisher. See what others think!

Lee, we have plenty of rabbits and fox seem to be on the rise around here. I'm familiar with both creatures and it's hard to get a clear picture but don't think it's either. The top ones don't look like canine as the pad seems to be more like cat and the track appears to be more round than oval. I did put out a few cameras in case they decide to return and just in case it's a cat, made a couple of sets. Maybe I can add a cat to this years pile!

What is the approximate size and spacing of the tracks in the bottom picture ?

No fox around here so I'm not familiar with their behavior but bobcats are notorious for walking in other critters tracks and backtracking on their own.

And how deep is that snow?

About 4"-5" apart with about 12" between each set of four prints. Tracks about the size of a 50 cent pc.

There was a lot of that in that area including squirrel & rabbit. Interesting on them back tracking like that!

About an inch of crust with a light dusting. Small patches of snow in shaded areas otherwise very little snow.

The toe pads in that first pic doesn't look bigg enough for a cat to me, but they are not very clear. Camera is a good way to find out! Good luck!

Thanks !! I don't have fisher but if those were marten tracks it is very similar to a marten walking rather than bounding. So............could it be fisher walking ?

To me they appear to be fisher tracks.

Thanks everyone. Cameras are out, time will tell.....I hope!

I agree fisher.

Here are small female fisher tracks(walking) to compare,but in deep snow.

so, each of the 4 pear shaped depressions shown is 4-5" long and has 4 individual prints in the bottom? and they are 12" between?
half dollar is ~1" and my references say fisher tracks are greater than 2.5" & i don't see crowding 4 2.5" prints into a 4-5" space..
If my understanding is correct, then I say they are consistent with either mink or weasel; I asked about the snow depth because there's not much body drag showing but with just an inch there wouldn't be. I would have thought mink to be about 18" apart, so possibly weasel which I don't have.
If each of those pear shapes is a pair of prints then it's maybe fisher.

Waaaaaaaaaay too big for wink or measle

How cold was It. They could be skunk tracks.

5" body print? 12" between hops? OK

Maybe the wink or measle was wearing 50 cent pieces for snow shoes?

LOL !!!! Right !!!!!!!!

In my part of the country a weasel would leave tracks smaller than a dime and a mink would not be much bigger.

Alright, call me crazy but Im ruling out a kangaroo!!

I am sorry to hear AK mink are so small.
SCDNR

So, ~1.25"x1.38"
"The half dollar, sometimes referred to as the half for short, is a United States coin worth 50 cents, one-half of a dollar, and is the largest United States circulating coin currently produced in both size and weight, being 1.205 inches (30.61 mm) in diameter and .085 inches (2.15 mm) in thickness, and is twice the weight of the quarter."

HA HA,that size of mink must have been from a nuclear waste site.
Wild mink print is about 3/4 by 3/4 of an inch

From what I can see, I will also say fisher after comparing them to the fisher tracks I had go through my yard a year ago.







Plus the fact that he is in an area where fisher are common.

Yup,,about dime sized here for mink also.

And your fisher has a body length of 4-5" ? with all four footprints in one 4"X5" area?

Actually a dime is ~.7" & $.50 is 1.2" so Boco's 3/4" given that the op said melting involved is all within the "about" grouping.
I think that some of us are seeing those body prints as footprints, or maybe I'm totally wrong and fishers are rat sized , after all I've never seen one. Any way it beats talking about religion.

TJM. I don't understand what "body prints" you are referring to ??? Are you talking about the photo that Boco posted or the original post? I don't see any indication of body marks in the originals

I'm talking about the pear shapes in the OP 2nd picture which he says is sets of four prints, as in a hop 12" hop 12" hop trail with four foot pints in each pear shape depression in 1" of snow... but I can't see that in any of the pictures- it's what I think I read

Fact is in both the OP pics I can only see one real track and I think it is a cat in the 1st pic, but pictures always have me guessing because of lighting and angles.

I think maybe you misunderstood him. Or maybe I did.

The way I see that bottom picture is ....there are 4 individual foot prints that are each 4-5 inches apart. The next set of 4 is 12 inches further to the left..out of the picture.

If you look at the picture Boco posted it is very similar. each depression is the track of a single paw. There is also a bit of dragging of each foot in the direction of travel AND a bit of body drag on the edges of that trail.

Is that the way you understood the OP ??

Fisher. They walk and bound.

I bet you're right, I misunderstand half of what I read on the net; but that means it is walking with 8" steps to place four steps then making one real long step and doing it again, and repeating that, a pattern of travel I haven't seen.
It's not clear to me in Boco's pic that the animal is trotting, or bounding or loping, the snow is deep enough that the feet drag; in MnMan's first picture I see what references say I should with fisher; paired sets of double registered tracks.
As Lee said the way I see the 2nd OP pic it could be a rabbit. Or any small hopping animal.

We got big mink

In Boco's picture the animal is walking. That is what I think is shown in the OP's second picture.

You're right that the normal pattern is paired tracks. Marten tracks are almost always the paired also.

But every once in a while marten will walk and it is that same pattern that both Boco and the OP have shown.

The first time I saw walking marten tracks I had a hard time figuring out what they were. I had to follow them for quite a ways until he returned to the normal bounding gait.

I have absolutely no idea whether there is any correlation to what I'm going to say next but.........the times I have noticed marten walking have been when there is a significant crust in the snow with just a bit of loose new snow on top. That was also the OP's description of conditions in that picture.

Anyway.....I find it interesting to wonder why critters do what they do, especially when it's out of the ordinary