About 2 weeks ago, 6 miles into the forest, we came upon mud with tracks of bear, bobcats, opossums, and other animals. We came back the next day and set up a trail cam on this remote ridge jeep trail. We left this camera for 10 days, as well as another one off another spur trail several miles away.
When we returned last Sunday to retrieve them our hearts sank as we could see the camera was aiming down at the ground. Something had knocked it hard. We didn't know when it had been knocked. The whole 10 days could have been a waste. When we downloaded the 64 videos from the camera back home, the answer was clear. It had been knocked down about one hour before our return. Below is the evidence of who the culprit was.
Four days earlier, another drama had unfolded.
The next morning, the big cat returned. Mountain Lions can and do kill and eat elk of all sizes. I watched a video of one locked onto a bull elk's throat and grappling its head. This apparently asphyxiated the elk enough to weaken it, allowing the lion to bring it down. We don't know if this was the case in this instance.
Of the 64 videos taken by the first camera (bears, Mountain Lion, deer, elk), 53 were of branches blowing in late afternoon breezes. Such is the life of a trail cam geek.
3 comments:
Great videos!!
Yikes, if I were that elk, I'd have been skeeeeered! Great videos. I can't believe you were hiking 12 miles a day to get these, but I think it was worth it, and you can always watch branch-blowing-in-the-breeze videos when you need to mellow out. :) I bet that mountain lion would cover 6 miles at a steady clip. Amazing to think they are so close to your house.
Well, we actually drove 4.7 miles to the trail and hiked in 1.3 miles. We have caught mountain lions with our trail cams on our property 4 times now.
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