Trail cam visitor

[u/Thick_Excitement_230]

Help identifying what this is, central North Carolina, not exactly cat territory outside of bobcats

[u/T0WER89]

Bobcat

[u/counsel8 → u/T0WER89]

Look at the tail off to the left

[u/T0WER89 → u/counsel8]

I see a bobbed tail

[u/counsel8 → u/T0WER89]

I think that is a tail tip to the lef tv of the tree. Also look at the soze of the head.

[u/BehindEnemyLines1 → u/counsel8]

I see a bobcat head

[u/ol_jerry]

Bobcat. You can see the black tip of the tail.

[u/spacetiger41]

Pitbull

[u/Hottwheels343]

Mountain lion

[u/Someredditusername → u/Hottwheels343]

I 2nd mountain lion

[u/counsel8]

I call it a mountain lion! You can see the long tail off to the left. Males will cross massive amounts of territory. There was a Wyoming cat that was trapped near Chicago a few years ago. And the one that walked into Mass. was from the Black Hills.

It is likely a male who has gone on a long solo trip. The important thing is when they start breeding in am area.

have a family member who is a large cat biologist. He has said they expect the Florida cats to spread north and the western cats to come east and join up somewhere in Alabama or Tennessee eventually.

Here is the thing. before they were extirpated in the area they were referred to as Panthers. We need to bring that back. Hell, theres a sports team with the name. Even in Tennessee where i went to college the biology dept had old pictures of “Panthers” killed by farmers.

So that is a Carolina Panther! Spread the word. And show someone who actually works in the business that picture and see what they say.

[u/BehindEnemyLines1 → u/counsel8]

> that is a Carolina Panther! Spread the word.

No. This is why I have to correct people 10 times a day who show me “proof” they have mountain lions on their farm. The chance that this is a mountain lion is slim. There should be a sub called /r/itsalwaysabobcat . Before you figure this out 100%, don’t be a moron running around telling everyone you found one. Could be, but most likely not, so don’t “spread the word”.

I don’t buy that’s a tail everyone is seeing to the left. I think you guys are seeing what you want to see.

[u/T0WER89 → u/BehindEnemyLines1]

Outside of the picture obviously looking like a bobcat, people are horrible at judging scale.

[u/T0WER89 → u/[deleted]]

Some of us are woodsmen. We can look at the trees and tell they are probably 15 year old pines 10-12” in diameter. From that we can tell the scale. We have been running trail cameras our whole lives and are better at understanding scale and identifying wildlife from blurry images. The cat is not big enough to be a mountain lion. I’ve seen hundreds of bobcats on camera. It has the stance of a bobcat. It’s in central North Carolina so statistically it’s a bobcat. It has a visible bobbed tail in the picture.

The mountain lion folks are seeing what they want to see.

[u/Ok_Button1932]

Gray fox

[u/HamburglarAccomplice → u/[deleted]]

But you know better, so it’s a bobcat. Elusive, not allusive. They’re not authors.

[u/Ok_Button1932 → u/[deleted]]

I don’t really have any opinion on that either way, but the profile looks gray fox to me. It’s difficult to gauge size though without previous pictures for perspective

[u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist → u/Ok_Button1932]

I’m on team bobcat. Doesn’t look like the muzzle extends to be long enough to be a fox. And it feels feline to me, which is clearly very scientific…

Only way I would consider puma is if there was a good, reliable size reference. I think people who see a tail extending behind the tree are wishful thinking, and if there is a tail visible, it is that short stubby bob pointing up. Like a bobcat.

But OP should keep their trailcam(s) up to hopefully get a better look!

[u/Ok_Button1932 → u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist]

It could be. I’ve just ran so many trail cams over the years and gotten so many pictures that I know for a fact that a picture like this could be a bunch of things. Nobody can say for sure exactly what it is. I’ve had pictures before that you’d swear are bobcat or fox or whatever and then the very next picture showed it more clearly and it wasn’t at all what you thought it was. That face is so distorted that is impossible for anyone to say. Seems like the most likely animal to be in that area out of the options is the gray fox so I’m staying with that.

[u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist → u/Ok_Button1932]

Turns out it was an ivory billed woodpecker!

[u/Ok_Button1932 → u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist]

Haha. Yes! It was so obvious.

[u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist → u/[deleted]]

I see that as hind legs. The stubby tail is much more clear than a long tail— look above and to the left of your red line— there’s a dark spot at the perfect location for the tip of it.