bear tracks?

[TCarter]

Hey guys,

i'm on the boarder of NC and VA, between Danville VA a Roxboro NC, and there's been some siteing of large animals around my area. i own a fair amount of land, but the largest thing i've seen, or hunted for that matter, were deer.

anyway, riding on the trails the other day, and i saw some real fresh tracks. they were really big, so i assume someone had been riding the horses. Than i stopped when i started seeing smaller, identical tracks next to those big ones. last i checked, my horses don't have claws, nor are their holves near this large. here are some pictures.

are we looking at bear tracks, or something else? and if this is bear with cubs, what do you suggest? i got a 44mag with scope and the whole nine yards, as well as a thirty-aught-six. those large enough to bring it down, or am i just pissing off the wrong animal?

[Simp]

Very hard to make out I'm afraid.

[Wolf killer]

First picture is a front paw print of a black bear.
Third picture is a print of a back/hide paw print.

[Phil from Maine]

Looks to me as though Wolf Killer hit right, becarefull riding your horses around it as it can really spook a horse.
Up here they have spooked some horses and they ran for miles..

[Bocajnala]

yea I would say bear. carry the pistol. Itll be more then good enough. I actually enjoy seeing bear in the woods, so no need to just kill it to kill it. If it isnt harming anything just enjoy it!

[TCarter]

Does anyone know the NC laws for hunting bear? I actualy think it's pretty cool having the bear around here, hopefully more will come and hunting them will be permitted (if it's not already). But if it starts messing with my animals, i'm gonna need to bring it down.

[Love to Bear Hunt]

They look like bear tracks, but they're hard to make out. If your brave enough, then you could track em. I'd get a shotgun or bow first though. Or a safer method would be to put a trail cam up somewhere and see if it comes by again. If you could post some new pics up that'd be better. Good Luck

[johnny2]

I would say that you have found the tracks of a big foot

[salukipv1]

Bigfoot

[MinnFinn]

The first picture is clearest of any to see the main paw pad and toes. I looks like Black Bear. I don't know of any other mammal with that size / pattern of prints than that.
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLF,GGLF:2006-01,GGLF:en&q=black+bear+tracks&um=1

You should have to worry too much about it bothering you or your livestock. But if you have feed for animals(e.g. horse, bird, dog, etc.) or people that it smells (and they have tremendous sense of smell) they can be a real nusiance. Our families old house on the homestead in NE MN has had bears break into the outer hallway to get at meat in a cooler early in the spring. It grabbed stile of a solid wood panel door in it's mouth and pulled the door off the hinges to get the cooler. They've showed up on the steps, looking in the screen window in the summer and on occasion years ago we had to shot several that wouldn't go away. Normally they're pretty willing to turn tail and run. As is often said, don't get between a sow bear and her cubs or anything else they consider theirs.
I"m really sort of surprised you don't have more bears in your part of the country. Black bears are the most adaptable and widely spread species of bear in America and spreading wider every year it seems, where it has the necessary food, habitat and climate.