WHO WAS AT THE WINDOW?

 

 

When camping in national parks and forests, of course we’re cautious about predators. We store food in bear boxes or the RV fridge, watch for mountain lions when we hike, look behind rocks for rattlesnakes before sitting down, eye scraggly-looking strangers with initial suspicion.  Just as we don’t display jewelry or electronic gear when walking through city streets, we don’t invite trouble in the boondocks.

At home we feel safe in general. Our home bordering  the El Dorado National Forest is hidden from the road and seems immune even from the occasional El Dorado County crime.  So, when we saw a paw print in the pollen on a bedroom window, we were startled. What could have made a print that large, more than four feet above the ground? It was definitely  nothing human.

Our first thought was the neighbor’s large dog, which tends to wander through our yard and leave his paw prints on everything, but we compared the print with the original dog paws, and realized this animal was much larger.

Could it have been a black bear? Bears do wander into the surrounding area once in a while, and the paw looked like the right size. Bears are notorious for tearing apart anything that might contain food, and that might give us a clue.  In a nearby area not long ago, a bear broke into a cabin where the owner had left a liquor supply. After smashing a bottle of rum, the bear promptly lapped up the rum, got very drunk, and tore apart everything in the cabin. So we looked around for any disturbance, found our compost pile looked untouched, remembered that we have no liquor, and concluded that our visitor was not a bear.

That left us with the frightening main possibility that a mountain lion had been there. The print seems to match those I found online, but I am no expert on identifying animal tracks. (Or scat, aside from deer and dog poop.) We plan to have the county trapper look at a photo of the print soon. In the meantime, we will be a little more cautious walking in the woods—or even walking out the front door.