LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS (Part 2)

The photo at the right doesn't look like much, but I took it yesterday afternoon approximately one mile (as the crow flies) from our house. Glenn spotted the tracks during his morning walk and I looked for them later in the afternoon. A warming trend (it's been in the mid- to upper 30's for 3 days) means things melt off in the afternoon. However, the tracks we saw definitely were NOT canine . . . so that rules out stray dogs, foxes, coyotes or wolves. We believe the tracks were more feline in nature (my walking partner, Dixie) agreed.

Mountain lions, aka cougars live in the area. Last winter when we were only visiting Idaho, several stories about mountain lions being spotted on the campus of Idaho State University in the city of Pocatello were printed in the paper. As the snow gets deeper in the upper elevations, game animals -- primarily mule deer -- move down the mountains. Of course, their predators follow. We're seeing more and more mulies near the highways, so it only follows that cougars are in the vicinity.

In addition, yesterday morning we could see wild turkeys out the north and south sides of the house simultaneously. About a 1/4 mile south, a flock of about 25 were in the field. North of the house, a bit further, we've been seeing a flock of around 75 wild turkeys. And, when we walk, we believe it's a third group of around 20 that lives near a neighbor's house and hangs out where the cows' feed hay is dropped. Kinda cool!