bear most likely, but...





Forgot to add, this is my trailcam pic taken with a Stealthcam digi. It has not been cropped to hide anything.
What do you think it looks like?

Blow it up...those don't look like bear paws. I don't know what it is though.

How's this.
It gets blury since it was on low resolution.

Hmmm

Interesting....The feet look a little too long to be bear, and it looks like we are looking straight at the ends of toes, it still needs blowing up more regardless.

*well Rick beat me to it. Can you go out a little further Rick?

Whatever it is, it looks like it's got two right feet.

It seems the feet are somewhat faceing the camera and do seem wide. But the toes look like they are high or maybe they are claws? So how far from the camera is this thing? How tall does it seem to be?

it looks like a bear to me. was there any claw marks around on the trees?

I think I see standard dark green camo on the pants. Are there turkey hunters in the area, poachers or not? A turkey hunter camo outfit is supposed to be soft and soundless and lots of fabric. If it were a hunter, what is at the sapling/tree that would interest him? Thanks for the pitch!

Tossing my hat into the ring...

It is a black bear. The (from viewer's point of view) left front foot/paw is flat on the ground. The right one is either about to come down, or is coming up for a step. The bear is entering the zone that trips the electric eye of the game-cam.

And... If I am wrong, I will eat the hat, but only with ketchup.

Edit: I'm having a nice day. I don't know my left from my right.

I'm probably gonna regret this, but I don't think it's a black bear. Legs look more defined than a bear to me anyway. Found a pic of standing black bear on web, not the same...

Take your pic by the same tree and measure?

Here's the website www.fotosearch.com/CRT227/00234tb/
I tried attaching the pic to this post....what am I doing wrong, can't get to work????

Sunflower

Does not look like a black bear to me either......legs too humanlike....it may be a turkey hunter? Just a thought :new_whistle: :new_whistle:

kinda bear like...

Our turkey season ended the 6th.
I know because I was out after them.
I get pics of bears in this area so this is likely what it is.
Still looks strange though because it seems to stand really straight up, not like a bear that tends to lean forward a bit.

I'll bet you my trail cam the tree infront of the "legs" is a bear tree.

Howdy folks...

IMHO it looks like it is down on all four limbs...



And IMHO it's a bear...

"Now What The Heck Is This?" .....

I don't know.

Did you have any kind of bait around?

Maybe (if it is on 2 legs) it could be a bear reaching for bait?

Rather than a turkey hunter, could it possibly be just some person walking through the woods that got caught by your cam? A trespasser maybe?

Looks like pants to me.

JMO

My vote goes bear as it looks to me that the front right leg is visible next to the tree. I do agree that the lower leg looks odd however, not being an expert on bear legs, can't say much, but it does look odd.

Bear with three legs

What I want to know is why someone would set up a trail cam with it set on the lowest quality resolution and then point it at the ground?

The center of the picture is where I scatter bait (corn, bird seed).
The camera is a 1.3 mp set on low resolution in order to capture more pictures on the card.
I can get close to 1000 pics on a 512 card over a 3 week period. I get mostly squirrels, coon, turkeys, crows, song birds, possums, fox, coyotes and other assorted critters and yes, an occasional bear. The camera is not really aimed at the ground but at a slope.
The picture was taken in western NC. in a sparsely populated area on my family's private land. Not exactly a hot spot for bf sightings at all. One thing of importance, while camping with the family last summer we were awakened by a wood knocking sound only a hundred yards away up the mountain not far from where this picture was taken. I have not figured that one out yet. I just figured it came from a house down below but the kids thought the sounds came from up above us. The noises occured around 5:30 in the morning well before it got light. There were around 5 strikes against wood, then silence for a few minutes then it repeated several more times. I thought I was the only one to hear it but my 10 year old son ask me later that morning "who was that chopping wood in the dark?" :eek3dance:

I agree with Jedi Master. It's a bear on all fours.

Just a question from the photographically ignorant;

Does that camera flash? If so, is there enough delay between the object tripping the sensor, the flash going off and shutter opening for the object to see the flash and (if ursine, not primate) stand up?

It does kind of look like the hind legs of quadruped though (hard to be sure).

Great pic! Thanks for that!

Cheers

Alex

Ahhhh.. that makes more sense. I had (mistakenly) assumed that you set it up for the sole purpose of attempting to photograph a BF..

Knowing that area as well as I do and the type of people that are out there I would bet there are a lot more Wompus Cat (bigfoot) stories than we know about. Just a hunch though.

But the picture looks like a bear on all fours. I originally thought it was facing away from the cam like a lot of others think

No,
a bf never really entered my mind as a possibility until I got this shot. If one ever walked in front of my cams all I would get would be the knee caps. I like to set my cameras low and close to the subject. The more I look at he picture I agree it is a bear. The front leg is against the tree as someone pointed out. I guess the angle made the legs and feet/toes look strange.

Just reading posts,
I don't personally know anyone with any bf stories. My great grandfather told of a bear hunting trip when the dogs came back acting all strange and wanting to get up in the wagon (mule driven) and refused to hunt anymore that night. He said they would not have been afraid of a big cat if there was one (moutain lion legend again) so he was clueless to the cause of their fear.

BFRO does have a few class A sightings in the county and surrounding counties.

Hunter Foot (In Camo)

Edited in Photoshop

Me, too.

I think I see his tail, too.

Hellooooooo, you people would make some crappy investigators.....It's a decapitated sasquatch!

Can't you see it's head laying over there? Sheesh people, wake up. :new_lmaosmiley:

What County are you in if you don't mind me asking. I am just barely across the State Line in Virginia. PM if you don't want everyone to know.

I hope you mean tail as in his butt. I've never known a bear to have an actual tail.

Well, I have to say after all the comments, this could be a bear walking away from the camera. I can see that...

Sunflower

"Occam's Razor" would apply here, as it does with all inconclusive photos............

One question: "Who thinks it's a Sasquatch?"

:new_lmaosmiley: HAHAHA ........

I see 3 legs... 3 - legged Sasquatch! Haha? We're gonna need to see a pic of a person standing in the same spot

very cool. i have no idea what to think it is, but i was wondering if there were other pics, like what was on the film just before and just after this one

gael

I think its likely a bear on all fours facing away as well.

And of course a decapatated blobsquatch head. :laugh:

As far as the wood knocking goes; I would consider a Pileated Woodpecker. They are big and can bang pretty hard on a tree trunk. Also, the state of the peice of wood will make a big difference in the sound and the loudness level. A hollow tree or hollow spot near the pecking can produce a suprising loud knock.

They do. It's really short, but it's there.

They also have a penis bone. I've still got one of those around the house somewhere..........

I must apologize before hand. The monitor Im using is older than my grandfathers buckskin rubber so its kinda hard for me to tell. What Im pointing out could be a shadow, a stick, or anything really. But in the circle Ive drawn, could that be a hand or a paw?

I was reading a book about 19th century Americana, and a common phrase in use then was, "As short as a hold on a bear's tail," meaning really short.

EDIT: Once again, I'm not picking up the internal quote (the quote by TheMoor1981, whom Huntster was quoting). Is anybody else having this problem? If not, is there a known cause for why it's happening to me?

I agree that it looks like it might be a hand or a paw, but I suspect (and upon some deliberation, think) that its follage. It looks like a group of the long thin leaves like ones you see on the ground.

I vote Bear

quote:

--As far as the wood knocking goes; I would consider a Pileated Woodpecker. They are big and can bang pretty hard on a tree trunk---

I know that sound well and that's not what it was. I'm 45 and have been hunting and spending time in the woods since I was old enough to walk. The sound I heard was similar to hitting a tree with a wooden bat pretty hard in 2-3 second intervals. It was loud enough to wake me from a deep sleep. I sat up and listened to it with my head stuck out of the tent. Our big lab/retriever mix wanted in about that time. She never offered to bark. She had spent the night under the truck sleeping as she is hot natured and this was in June. I went back to sleep after the noise stopped hoping the kids had not heard it. One did and the other had not.
I went up in the woods looking around a few days later by myself and saw no sign of anything.

I've been setting trailcams out for 2 years now and have got close to 50 pics of bear in this same area.
So, the odds are this is a black bear. I have 2 cams out now in different spots with some old pastries set out so I should get some more of what ever this is.

Was this a dumb question?

Blair Tucker, can you provide any sense of scale? How far from the camera do you think that is? Maybe you said this already and I missed it...

To my uneducated eye, it looks like a bear scratching a tree. Can you post any of your other bear pictures? I'm wondering if we can compare coloration, etc. Any where the paws are visible would be especially helpful.

The camera will flash in low light during the day and it those rhododendron thickets it stays dark most of the time. I would say it was flashing when the pic was taken. This is why infra-red trailcams are getting more popular as the price goes down. Instead of a flash there are IR emitters that scare the animal less.
This one is not real cheap but you get the idea.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Stealth-Cam-Digita...1QQcmdZViewItem

and a cheaper model...
http://www.vibrashine.com/store/merchant.ihtml?id=3&step=2

Now I get it, thanks very much for that.

Cheers

Alex

I brighten up the pic a little and changed the contrast and I see what could be toes on the bottom front of the foot...the three greyish colored stubs...on each foot...so to me I see a creature facing the camera...with its toes pointing at an angle to the right side of the screen...and I also see what look like a knee...and a darker crotch area...those toe thingys could also be claws if its a bear...
Click to view attachment

Original image brightened:
Click to view attachment