Google image search for ‘coyote tracks’ … DNA tests were consistent with cougars from the Black Hills of South Dakota.Ĭheck out the images from Google searches linked below, and tell us what you think below in the comments section. On ApChicago police shot and killed a cougar on the north side of Chicago in the Roscoe Village neighborhood less than one mile west of Wrigleyville. Some reports of suspicious tracks in the mud have also been reported in the Lake Forest area. In October 2011 there were several sightings of a cougar or mountain lion in the Conway Farms subdivision of Lake Forest, just east of Chicago Bears headquarters, Halas Hall. On Tuesday FebruMount Prospect police received a single report of a large cat - not a normal house cat - near Elmhurst Road and Dempster Road. Cougars are solitary, reclusive cats and usually avoid people, but attacks on humans have been known to occur. Primary food sources of cougars include deer, elk, moose, and bighorn sheep, as well as domestic cattle, horses and sheep. Cougars are similar to house cats, but are about the size of adult humans. More clearly defined cougar tracks in Colorado.Ĭougars are also known as mountain lions, and are mammals that are members of the family Flidae - native to the Americas. The pawprint also appears to have the large, possibly three-lobed heel pad that is characteristic of a cougar. The roundness of the pawprint and the size are consistent with a cougar, mountain lion or very large dog. The stride is too long for a fox (which is only about 10 inches), and the tracks don’t look like the shape that comes from a coyote. What’s remarkable about the tracks is how large the animal must have been to have a stride of over three feet without being in a run or gallop. Mountain lions and cougars are known to have paw prints that are wider than their length, or more round than egg-shaped like a coyote or dog. The length of the pawprint or pawprints area was about 4-5 inches front-to-back and almost eight inches wide. However, dogs are also known to move in a direct register gait. The gait is called direct register, and is especially used by cougars when moving in deep snow. Cougars are known to walk with their hind feet directly landing inside where their front feet landed. This gives the look of one huge pawprint. The tracks might have been double tracks representing the animal’s forefoot and hindfoot strike into the snow in approximately the same area. According to A Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in Western America (page 45), the stride of a mountain lion is 40 inches.
The stride of the tracks measures a distance of over three feet. The video (above) shows animal tracks that were discovered Monday, Februabout 2:00 p.m. That makes the discovery of these animal tracks in Arlington Heights very interesting.
VIDEO of animal tracks discovered on the north side of Arlington Heights on Monday, Februshowing a large pawprint that is wider than long in a ‘direct register’ gait with long stride.Ĭougar sightings were reported in Lake Forest in October 2011, and a stray cougar was shot in Chicago in 2008.