Mountain Lion or Coyote? (Carcass photo warning if your squeamish)

[KC Masterpiece]

Someone left a nice present in our yard over the weekend. Not hunting but definitely hunting adjacent.

What do you think took this little guy? Natural or not? By the time I got over there to see there were no tracks and no drag marks around the area. Talisker was having the best time standing around the carcass trying to fight off all the birds. Coyotes definitely drug it around and ripped it to bits the next day. 3 days later and nothing is left so it must have been dragged off. We definitely have lots of coyotes around our place but I have yet to see a cat. I am sure they are around though. I had read that coyotes will quickly rip a carcass apart and cats will go right for the good bits in the chest cavity. It was still lukewarm when I found it around 7am.

Edit. Fixed the photo. Maybe?

 

[damon]

Looks like a cat to me, but I am not an expert. Time for a game cam outside!

 

[KC Masterpiece]

Looks like a cat to me, but I am not an expert. Time for a game cam outside!

I was thinking the same thing. Curious what is wandering around there at night. We have a fence in the back but the moose wreck it so often I have stopped trying to repair it.

 

[damon]

You get moose in the yard? I want to move up there so bad!

 

[KC Masterpiece]

You get moose in the yard? I want to move up there so bad!

It sounds romantic until you see the big bull through the window after you already let the dog out. Thankfully he is smart enough to be scared of anything bigger than him.

 

[rover67]

My guess would be lion. We get a lot of kills like that around our house. Also, a lot of moose and elk. I’ll agree with they comment about letting the dog out and then seeing a moose in your yard. That gets terrifying real fast.

 

[wesintl]

geez did google kill the image already?

 

[shellb]

geez did google kill the image already?

Right??

 

[KC Masterpiece]

Is the photo not showing up?

 

[BritKLR]

BTW, the picture is missing.

Rumor has it that 17 dogs have gone missing in the last several weeks up here to due to cat activity. As a matter of fact, haven't seen a coyote lately......

 

[KC Masterpiece]

I think I fixed the photo. Apparently my new phone takes them too large to upload.

@BritKLR where is that at? Boulder? I though I read something about that recently.

 

[BritKLR]

I think I fixed the photo. Apparently my new phone takes them too large to upload.

@BritKLR where is that at? Boulder? I though I read something about that recently.

Everything is up here around Nederland. The game cam was shot by my friend that runs/patrols the Boulder City mountain water reservoir system.

The tracks in the snow above head of the elk looks like cat tracks but, there should have been a ton of telltale tracks around the elk to indicated what munched on it, which could als be different then what brought it down.

 

[Corbet]

I would think a cat would have taken it with it and put it up in a tree for later. Either way it’s mountain living. We leave the Malamute outdoors all the time. Little dog never.

image loaded for me.

 

[arthog]

I lost my dog to the mt lion in May. I'm about 8 miles south of Paul, North Gilpin.