# Found big cat sign



## Krag (Jan 27, 2014)

I was out morel hunting near a swamp in Ogemaw county this past weekend, and found what looked like a cougar kill. There was a deer carcass near a large pine tree that was just fur and bones left on the ground. What I thought was odd is that it looked like the carcass had fell from the tree, as a few broken branches hung just above the carcass. As I looked closer at the tree, I seen deer hair stuck to the bark in several spots going up, as well as many deep claw marks. In addition, there was some large scat near by as well, large as a bear's, about 2-2.5" diameter. Do any other animals drag their kill up a tree? I got some pic's of the tree and scat i can post later.


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## Tigerfly (Feb 2, 2007)

Post the pictures. Any prints?


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## triplelunger (Dec 21, 2009)

You've stumbled across sign of the elusive michigan leopard. 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Ohub Campfire mobile app


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## MSUFW07 (Jan 22, 2009)

Not saying that there isn't big cats in Michigan but... hanging a kill in a tree is not a mountain lions way of doing things. If you said you saw a kill that was laying on the ground covered up with leafs other debris, sure but not up a tree. The claw marks and the scat, you may have answered that yourself when you said bear size. Ogemaw county, don't know myself much about bears but I imagine that's bear country. Again not doubting what you saw at all but the kill that looks like it fell from a tree isn't a cougar thing to do, I think a bear might be a better explanation.

Read section on "Lion Kill Characterstics"
http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5251229.pdf


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## Krag (Jan 27, 2014)

A bear was my first assumption. The tree thing is what made me think it might be a cougar, however, if cougars don't do that then who knows. The scat sure could be a bear's, it may not have anything to do with the animal that killed the deer either. I'm not sure what cougar scat looks like. Although, the claw marks did not look like a bear's. I've seen claw marks from bears, there is a lot of them in this area. A bears claws usually make a wider grove than the claws on this tree, although its hard to see in the picture though. These claw marks were from a wide paw but seemed more cat like to me, like the claws were thinner, sharper and went very deep into the bark. Also, its hard to tell the size of the scat, if I were to describe it, Id say about the diameter of a beer bottle. I wish I would have looked around more for some prints, but the mosquito's were horrible.


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## limige (Sep 2, 2005)

I was expected a nice big green arctic cat shop sign....doh


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## Tigerfly (Feb 2, 2007)

http://www.michigancougar.com/collectevidence.htm

Put out a trail cam if you can. Maybe it will return to the site. Check out the pictures of scat near the bottom of this. See if it matches up.


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