My land is on the fringes of wolf territory. The locals have all seen wolves in the area but the sightings aren't all that frequent. I have no experience with wolves and have never seen one in the wild. While hunting this year, I spotted what I thought was a very large coyote and when I was out yesterday checking my trail cams I came across a couple sets of very large tracks that looked like coyote tracks. They were at least 3" in diameter. I've never seen coyote tracks that large. After comparing these two pics from the same camera (doe & fawn vs wolf/coyote), what do you think it is? Thanks
If I had to guess with very little experience on wolves, I'd say that's a good sized coyote as well. Shame that it wasn't captured in the picture earlier.
It's up on top of the snow and closer to the camera so I think that makes it looks a bit bigger than it is. (compared to the deer) It's legs are kind of small boned for a wolf..... so I'd guess it's a big yote.
The bottom pic looks more like a small doe. Ears are to long for any sort of wild dog. No big bushy tail. Jaw line isn't right for a dog. The body is far to thick for a dog too. The top pic however, looks more like a dog of some sort given the body being narrower and the belly being more distended. It is hard to see, but that may even be a big bushy tail behind it. Sort of curled back to the leg. Given the 17 min time differance between shots, and their ordering. What you may have is a melding of your ideas here. You may have a Doe being followed by a large dog. I would say it is likely a Wolf or large wild Husky/Malamute because of your track size statment and the fact that both animals are close in size. Yes our half Husky, half Wolf did take down several smaller deer in Arkansas, she was very effective and not near the size of the dog in your picture. Coyotes are definatly no where near as large as the animal in your picture. All in all, if I am right I would say great job on the placement of that camera, and what luck? A decent set of pics showing a wild predator stalking a possible kill. Cool. Great pics.
I'm not sure what's in your picture Greg but here's a closeup of some wolf tracks to compare. The shell is a 30-06 and measures 3 3/16 inces lg.
As far as the tracks I'm going with wolf. Coyotes do not have 3 Inch pads on them, no way. The picture Is hard to tell but It wouldn't surprise me If It's a small, young Timber. I've gotten allot of pics of Timbers on my bear baits and not all Timbers are huge like most seem to believe. They grow just like any other animal so your bound to see a small/young Timber from time to time.
A young wolf or large breed dog would have enourmous pads and a smallish body letting it stand on top of that snow. In fact you can see a rear pad doing that in the shot, and that pad looks big. It still looks a bit big to be a yote in that pick compared aginst the deer.
I'm not sure what it is, but I know it's not a dog. Maybe I'll get a better pic in the next couple of weeks. Thanks
When this is all said and done (the guessing), I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that this particular specimen was a world-record 22yr. old wolf......on his way down.
