Mystery Animal on Game Camera

[j44ke]

Local saying: a fed bear is a dead bear. Feed chickens and they will run toward you when they see you. Bears aren't stupid.

I agree. And with weather changes, they are waking up unpredictably. One of the local biologists had a bear showing up on his game camera one mountain ridge north of here all winter long. Only at night, but he was definitely awake.

[j44ke]

This critter was tear-assing around. Most of the photos are a blur. Thinking mink but hard to gauge size. There is a chunk of wood in the photo that is about 19" and the animal is about that I think. Minks are supposed to be 13-18". Fishers are more like 30-36". I need to put a yard stick in the scene. An otter showed up in the photos the other day as well, but this isn't an otter. Otters are about the same size as fishers but slender and with long neck and a longer tail in proportion to the body The otter has been coming down the slope between 1PM and 3PM and diving into the water, but I haven't gotten a close up yet.







Amazing what happens when you shut down destructive activities on a piece of land.

[Mabouya]

Amazing what happens when you shut down destructive activities on a piece of land.

To say nothing of an entire planet...

[SlowPokePete]

Someone got a nice new coat for spring!

So heyhillsdale reposted a bear picture on Instagram. My wife inquired of the original photographer what road the pic was taken on.

Wanna guess the reply?

SPP

[j44ke]

So heyhillsdale reposted a bear picture on Instagram. My wife inquired of the original photographer what road the pic was taken on.

Wanna guess the reply?

SPP

Hah! Was it Collins St?

[SlowPokePete]

Hah! Was it Collins St?

of course...we both had to chuckle

SPP

[j44ke]

The first year we owned the land, we had a bumper crop of blackberries. Raspberries too, but the blackberries were off the charts. We had to walk over a little rise to get to the patch, and one time this giant bowling ball jumped up and ran off into the woods. We started clapping each time we went picking, so at least the bowling ball was gone by the time we got up there.

We haven't had as good a berry crop since. Raspberries were pretty good last year, but this year we've cut down most of them to prepare for creating patches that are easier to manage instead of a massive bramble of mysterious contents. Which means we'll have them in the fall which means we are likely to have bears fattening up for winter. More clapping.

[ides1056]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/u...gtype=Homepage

This amounts to a stupid human trick. Bear does what bears do and humans shoot it and yep, discover bears do what bears do. He did not get to be that large and old being stupid. Just out of hibernation with a few months' hunger to work off, you'd expect he might be a bit cranky.

[j44ke]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/u...gtype=Homepage

This amounts to a stupid human trick. Bear does what bears do and humans shoot it and yep, discover bears do what bears do. He did not get to be that large and old being stupid. Just out of hibernation with a few months' hunger to work off, you'd expect he might be a bit cranky.

Reminds me of the polar bears at the Bronx zoo (I think.) A couple kids got into the zoo late at night and went swimming in the polar bear pool. Polar bears woke up and killed them. Police arrived and killed the bears. Kids were already dead. Why kill the bears?

Even worse when it happens in Yellowstone. I mean bears are not an unexpected presence. But when land becomes money...

[j44ke]

Pretty excited about this one. The otter seems to have taken up residence somewhere on our property, and it uses one of our new paths as a sliding board down into the water. This is the best photo of many really bad ones. I now have some comparative measurements worked out with nearby logs, and the otter is about 28-30" long.



I think the original mystery animal that started this thread was a mink. Scale is difficult to establish, but fishers and otters are in the same size range with fishers a bit larger on average. None of the original photos were animals that large.

[Mabouya]

it uses one of our new paths as a sliding board down into the water.

Jorn, you need to get one of these and prop up the end with a few logs to see if they use it too:

[j44ke]

A little local drama. Click photo to get the video. Click the two arrows in the upper right of the black window to get the larger version.

Doe shows up on camera herding her fawn ahead of her while doing her distraction dance. Coyote shows up, and as the doe turns to face the coyote, the fawn rockets off towards a brushy area upstream where does have been hiding their fawns this spring. The doe goes straight at the coyote and chases it back the way it came.



Doe comes back, but she's still doing her distraction dance, so the coyote must be still around. Sure enough, the coyote pops into the frame on the right, and the doe turns to go after it. The coyote tries to out flank the doe, but the doe is just barely fast enough to match it. The coyote knows where the fawn went. It just has to get there first. So the coyote slows a bit and heads uphill, and as the deer closes in, the coyote does a quick flip turn, gets a few steps on the doe and now the doe is chasing the coyote towards the area where the fawn is likely to be hiding.

[Clyde]

Yeah a single coyote is not much of a match for a motivated doe. They are a serious threat to fawns, and the rise in coyote population has affected a decline in deer in many areas. Quite a game of hide and seek to live as they do. You're a lucky man to have access to this. I surely miss our farm in OH. Many times I wonder why in the heck we sold it to move down here. Then I remember the back breaking amount of work it took to keep that place running. I ride my bike a lot more these days. Great memories for sure.

[WFSTEKL]

That is pretty cool, Jorn.

[monadnocky]

I can almost hear the Marlin Perkins voiceover....

Neat.

[j44ke]

The does have been dropping the kids off all over the place, so I've been surprised not to have seen a coyote lately.





That first one had zero self-preservation. The second one only slightly more. The fawn in the video is much better equipped.

Local mammal biologist told me black bear take certain amount of fawns in the spring as well. They will criss-cross sections of woods where there is cover just in case they stumble upon a fawn lying hidden in the vegetation. Of course, coyotes take a bundle. I have an earlier game camera video with a coyote trotting past with a fawn in its mouth. Fawns often seem remarkably small when brand new.

I'm all for the coyotes. The deer are eliminating the understory in a lot of forests, our property included. And predation is important for keeping herds strong anyway. We had a 10 point buck that basically ran the place, destroyed saplings every fall, until last winter he was killed. Now four bucks with between 4 and 8 points show up on the game camera. There will be fisticuffs this fall during rut, and one or two of those guys will get the ladies. Hunting is in decline, partly because of the growth of posted property (property that has always been private but more recently has become posted with no hunting allowed) in the area. Our excavator is looking for a place to hunt this fall. We're thinking about it.

[mnoble485]

7DA1F71A-6554-435B-8E48-ED8EBF1A6428.jpeg

Sorry for the bad phone pic and it’s not a mystery animal. Taken as we were about 100 yards from the cabin in NC. Big guy (girl) turned and saw us and bee lined for the woods.

Mike

[j44ke]

7DA1F71A-6554-435B-8E48-ED8EBF1A6428.jpeg

Sorry for the bad phone pic and it’s not a mystery animal. Taken as we were about 100 yards from the cabin in NC. Big guy (girl) turned and saw us and bee lined for the woods.

Mike

Just strolling to the store to get a newspaper and coffee.

[j44ke]

Revisiting this thread. Animals are starting to move around. I noticed the other day that the old porcupine den appeared to be occupied, so I set up a game camera facing the tree.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/jornake/tvc5H904u2

[72gmc]

I can almost hear the Marlin Perkins voiceover....

Neat.

“It looks quite large and dangerous, so I’ve sent Jim ahead to deal with it bare-handed while I narrate from the Land Cruiser”