Feline Track Refresher

Whether it’s the potential for Bobcats here on PEI or reports of Eastern Cougar on the mainland, wild cats have a mystique that makes many of us want a track to be Feline. This, coupled with how feline some canine tracks look, means Dog tracks are sometimes mistaken for Cat even by experienced trackers. Let’s look at the differences.

As we saw earlier this month, canine tracks have an X-shaped negative space – that area between the pads of the foot; I’ve included my earlier image of a Red Fox track with the X-shape marked on the inset photo as a reminder. In felines, the negative space forms an upside-down C, and you can’t draw an X though the track without hitting one of the toe pads. That’s the first feature I look for.

Next, canine tracks are symmetrical: if you draw a line down the middle, each half is a mirror-image of the other. Feline tracks are asymmetrical: one toe leads, just like the middle finger of a human hand. This also tells you which paw is which. Here, the leading toe is second from the left, which means the track was made by the cat’s right foot (compare it to the leading finger on your right hand).

Finally, the pad at the heel of the foot (the palm pad) of feline tracks is larger relative to the size of the track than is the palm pad of canines. When looking at a feline track, you can often imagine fitting all four toe pads into the area of the palm pad.  

In these side-by-side feline and canine tracks, note the comparatively large palm pad of the Cat track, the leading toe, and the C-shaped negative space (compared to the X-shaped space of the Fox track). I didn’t get the scale quite the same in each photo, so the Cat track looks larger than the Fox track, when these two are actually about the same size. Red Fox tracks are often larger than Domestic Cat tracks, though the animals themselves aren’t that much bigger: an average Red Fox weighs just 10 to 12 pounds.

Learning to identify tracks made by our neighbours of other species is a great way to enjoy PEI untamed!