Caught a cat today and after dispatching and remaking the set I noticed it had an ear tag, ear tag number #2224. Never have a caught a critter with a tagged ear. Anyone in Minnesota ever caught a critter with ear tags? I googled it looking for some insight but found nothing. I remember sometime last year I read an article about a guy catching cats in Minnesota and he had a Wildlife Biologist, maybe a student, with that was tagging the cats he released. Of course I couldn't find the article.

Do you have a better picture of the tag itself? That is SUPER cool. If you give me a ROUGH idea of what part of the state it was taken in, I can check with a couple of people I know on Monday. Congrats on a cool catch.

Here's a pic of the tag. It's the same number on outside and inside of the right ear. It would be super interesting to learn more about when/where/why they're tagged, especially where the cat was caught and tagged. I'm in southern Carlton county,40 miles south of Duluth,Moose Lake area.

I am going to GUESS that is not a DNR tag and likely from some student doing graduate work or something along those lines. Given the location, it could easily have been tagged in WI too. This just keeps getting cooler. I will make some calls Monday but I don't think that is a MN DNR tag.

Thanks 160user, I appreciate the help! The only time I've heard of cats being tagged and released was that article I read on bobcat trapping. I'll dig around and see if I can find it,it was very interesting.

I’m probably wrong but in the grey recesses of my memory I thought we had a member here, located near Duluth, who was helping out on a project like that? Maybe 5 years back?

Osky

very cool, keep us posted

I emailed a lady from the DNR who works with wildlife studies to ask if she has any info on different bobcat studies using the same kind of ear tags. Assuming I won't hear back until at least Monday but I'll keep everyone updated on any info I find. This is really interesting.

Good job on the catch!

Osky

That sounds familiar, college student who got the research funded through the university or something?

Osky, yes, I think that's what I was reading about. I think I found the link for that article on tman in the archives. I'll have to search for it. Thank you!

That's a cool catch.

Congrats !

Wow very pretty

There is a museum collectors moto
That is hit is history
What is missed remains
A MYSTERY

and the plot thickens with this tag

Not sure I understand tagging a critter if you dont have identifying info on tag that allows a person to contact the 'tagger'. How will they ever expect to get information back..? Maybe Im missing something. ....

This^^

Every animal/bird I have ever heard of being tagged for a study had info on who to contact if/when tag was retrieved

Maybe an individual tagging and releasing to see if the same animal was being caught?

Hopefully the mystery is solved and we all find out who and why

On a side note that tag looks like some tags I have seen used to ID goats/sheep
https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail...p=f&utm_content=16866&ccd=IFF003

Yeah it's a bit odd. I can't imagine why an animal would be tagged with no contact info,unless it was a "canned hunt" type of thing, or some type of farm, and the owner keeping track of his animals. But can't imagine either of those scenarios anywhere close to my area. I've searched online for hours so far and am stumped, can't find anything. Thanks for the interest,help,and replies everyone. I appreciate it

I would guess it was a short lived study and they did not want any information from others. Many of the studies done by young biologists are something they dreamt up and are done for a grade and in reality serve no real purpose, other then a grade. I have trapped and work around a few and it is shocking how little they know.

One of my "sources" suggested that it may be either a tribal tag from Fond Du Lac or a tag from Natural Resource Research Institute in Duluth. I will keep digging and see if I can come up with anything definitive.

There is some research going on now with cats/fisher but I believe they are collared animals. Anyway, the project leads contact info is on the attachment and they may be able to give you some leads or know of past studies that were done and may have used this tag. Maybe this was a collared animal that was recaptured at some point and had the collar removed.

https://www.lccmr.mn.gov/proposals/2021/originals/proposal_2021-423_and_map.pdf