What are these from?

[dspohn]

i found these while walking in the woods by my house. I just got a trail cam for christmas so i wanted to try it out. There's tons of deer down in these woods but it's not open to hunting. I saw these down there and there are no human tracks within a mile of them. Just curious if anyone thinks they know what there from. Might just be a big dog i don't know.

[SpringerGuy]

Your photos are not showing up.

[dspohn]

i fixed them now i think

[SpringerGuy]

Sasquatch for sure.

[dspohn]

thats what i was thinking.

[MuskyBrian]

If you google "wolf tracks" one of the firs pictures that pop up are wolf tracks in the snow..These look nearly identical to your photo

[BobT]

Except for a trained individual, distinguishing coyote tracks from dog tracks is very tricky. From what I have read it can be done when you look at certain characteristics of the tracks.

Gray wolf (timber wolf) tracks can in most cases be easy to tell. They will be MUCH larger with adult tracks ranging from 3-3/4" - 5-3/4" in length.

Except for some of the very large breeds (great danes, St. bernard, some bloodhounds) the average dog struggles to leave a track any larger than about 3-1/2" to 4" in length.

Bob

[MuskyBrian]

I also notice the claws look relatively "unclipped", what part of the state are you from?

[dspohn]

south metro near the mn river

[jlm]

Could possibly be a timber but suspect they are dog tracks. You would be suprised how many miles one dog can put on in a day and the areas they travel. Again, you never can be sure though! Great pics, thanks for posting!

[Tom7227]

Looks like a Motorola to me!

[mrklean]

cougar anyone?

[Bear55]

I wouldn't be suprised if it was a timber cruising through. There was a good story in the Minnesota Volunteer about a wolf from Camp Ripley, they had a collar on it to track its movements. Anyway the darn thing headed down into Wisconsin and did a loop around Madison, then headed back into Minnesota south of the Cities and back up to Ripley again. I may be off on a few details but that was the general article.

[gundy89]

You guys are way off!!! It's definitely a chupacabra.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

ManBearPig! I'm super serial!

[MuskyBrian]

Here are what wolf tracks look like in snow for comparison sakes...

[chris35]

i would not be surprised at all if its a cougar track. we hunt up by sauk centre and found tracks that look exactly like that. we also took a pic by a cell phone and it was 1.5 cell phone tall, we brought the pic to the local dnr and they said cougar for sure and that there has been alot of call ins about cougar sighting as well. since we have found that track we have found 8 deer carcasses.

[dspohn]

I'm gonna go down there tomorow to pick up my trail cam. Maybe i'll have a picture of whatever it is who know's. Were supposed to get some snow tonight so maybe i can get some pictures of some fresher tracks.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I'm not saying it's not a cougar, but they look pretty similar to our great dane's prints.

[fivebucks]

Definately not a cougar. You can see the toe nails. It is some sort of canine. Hard to tell from the size of the phone how big the tracks are but probably dog or coyote. Wolf tracks are usually "wow" larger.

[SnoManX]

Not a cougar. I would say a large dog or possible timber wolf.

[pinkfloyd4ever]

cougar anyone?

LMAO! I knew you'd be on this one. Too big for cougar, I say bobcat.

Are there any hair samples near the prints that could be sent for DNA analysis?

[c&amagn]

Definitly not in the Feline Family, and most likely in the Canine Family, I'd say timber Wolf and or a large dog, I grew up right next to Lake Rebecca Park Reserve most of my child hood which is near Rockford,Delano Loretto area and I have seen Timber Wolf's in that park reserve, Before I was old enough to hunt, I'd go sit in the woods/trees out there and watch deer in the fall.

[snoozebutton]

Looks like a Motorola to me!

That'd be my guess too.

[DonBo]

Check out this HSOforum to see the difference between a dog and cat track.

http://www.bear-tracker.com/caninevsfeline.html

Because the track is longer than it is wide and because the nails are very visable, this is obviously a dog of some sort. A Timber Wolf would be very rare in the Metro are, but I guess anything's possible.