Elk or caribou? What dropped this poo?

July 22, 2010 6:24 PM

Scat Identification Filter: Help me identify this poop!

MY wife and I came across this while on the Beaver Pond Loop trail near Mammoth Hot Springs in YNP.

I'm pretty sure it's not from a bear (though they are in the area), but I'm not sure from what else it came from.

You can see my wife's foot to the right for scale.

Thanks!

posted by elder18 to pets & animals (23 answers total)

Horse? Was it right on the trail? Looks to me like the "road apples" we see here all the time from the carriage horses that bring tourists around downtown.
posted by 1000monkeys at 6:27 PM on July 22, 2010

Is it too obvious if I guess beaver?
posted by rabidsegue at 6:28 PM on July 22, 2010

Horse poop, at least from the horses around here, is usually a lot larger, lighter in color and considerably more fibrous.
posted by griphus at 6:33 PM on July 22, 2010

Were there Bighorn Sheep in the area? It's similar to what they leave in this area (though we're in the desert and that makes it a bit more Brillo-looking. Scroll down this page for a shot of Bighorn scat.
posted by buggzzee23 at 6:34 PM on July 22, 2010

It's quite possibly wolf scat. I usually look for tracks nearby for additional clues. There is some possibility that it could be bear/coyote depending on what was eaten by the animal.

PS: My research is about wolves in Yellowstone but I rarely deal with scat.
posted by special-k at 6:35 PM on July 22, 2010

Negative on horses (it's not a stock trail) and bighorn sheep are in another part of the park.
posted by elder18 at 6:36 PM on July 22, 2010

I'm not aware of wolves in that part of the park, but coyotes are everywhere, so that's a possibility.
posted by elder18 at 6:36 PM on July 22, 2010

Wolves are most certainly in that part of the park. Trust me, I know for a fact.
posted by special-k at 6:37 PM on July 22, 2010

Cool. They weren't mentioned in any of the guides to that trail that I read, and I thought they were mainly in the Lamar Valley area, but I'm sure you know better than I do.
posted by elder18 at 6:41 PM on July 22, 2010

Lamar valley is recommended in guides because it's a good open spot to observe packs on a hunt. Packs however travel all across their territories. Here are territories (with pack names) for 2008.
posted by special-k at 6:48 PM on July 22, 2010

I love that you asked this question.

Is that plant fiber or hair? That helps narrow down the possibilities. Also, as it looks fresh, how stinky was it? Omnivores and meat eaters have way nastier smelling scat.
posted by annsunny at 6:55 PM on July 22, 2010

Well, I didn't get too close, but it didn't seem to have much of an odor. Not sure if it's plant fiber or hair.

More common animals in the area include moose and elk, if it looks like either of those.
posted by elder18 at 6:59 PM on July 22, 2010

Let's see... with your foot as a guide it's not all that big... too small for full grown horse, moose or elk. If it's were a baby there might have been evidence of a larger group. Deer? There are green tinges and that definitely looks like plant fiber to me. I wouldn't count out the sheep... I've seen them "where they shouldn't be" about as much as I've seen them where you'd expect.

Why do I like identifying scat so much?
posted by cmoj at 7:13 PM on July 22, 2010

Oh yeah, maybe black bear. The idea that it's an omnivore won't leave me alone.
posted by cmoj at 7:14 PM on July 22, 2010

I have black bear on my property, and it doesn't look like that...the BB stuff here looks more......I don't know. "Ploppy." More like piles, less like, well....."logs." YMMV, I'm on the east coast.
posted by nevercalm at 7:23 PM on July 22, 2010

Looks like black bear shit to me. Like nevercalm says, bear shit is often moister but it is consistent with what I have seen. And, uh, what my dog loves to roll in.
posted by Foam Pants at 7:26 PM on July 22, 2010

Definitely definitely 100% not moose. The texture/shape seem weird for anything else deery or sheepy, too. The color is right for pretty typical bear (depending on what the bear ate, but it's often that greeny black), but it would have to be the poop of a pretty small bear, plus bear scat usually comes out more...blobby.

I'd put odds on the wolf, particularly you think that might be hair.

/not a scat expert, but a frequent hiker in wolf/bear/moose country in Alaska...who knows, maybe all Yellowstone poops are different.
posted by charmedimsure at 7:32 PM on July 22, 2010

That's definitely wild canid. It looks a little big to be coyote, but I'm assuming the coyotes are pretty well-fed in Yellowstone, so that's where my money would be. Wolf is definitely also a possibility.
posted by infinitywaltz at 8:02 PM on July 22, 2010

It looks like black bear scat. At certain times of the year, it looks like berries. Sometimes it has hair, other times it has grass. Bear shit is highly variable. It is pretty small though.

I can't really tell if it's grass or hair though. If it's hair, this is probably wolf or coyote scat, since they're the only creatures that size that would be relying exclusively on small mammals for sustenance.
posted by klanawa at 8:48 PM on July 22, 2010

I'd guess black bear and I see a lot of bear poop. Definitely not an elk or moose.
posted by fshgrl at 9:31 PM on July 22, 2010

My amazing poop detector tells me that this is cougar. Was it roughly the same size as a dog? Did it contain clumps of hair? Rounded ends with clearly segmented sections? Left out in the open (i.e. on a trail)? Rawr.
posted by Cat Face at 10:21 PM on July 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Second Cat Face. I took an animal tracking class at OSU and brought back cougar fur from my solo exam. It might be a juvenile.
posted by Mertonian at 10:38 AM on July 23, 2010

I think: moose/caribou/deer.

(1) Because it's "pelletized." But it's also kind of gloppy, which suggests a higher moisture time of the year, i.e., summertime, and maybe it's fresh, too. (I see the moose version of this stuff regularly.)

(2) The stringy stuff looks more like vegetation than hair, so it's not a carnivore.

(3) I think it's too small for bear. (But I don't see bear scat regularly. I could be wrong.)

(4) No way it's a horse. The pellets are too little.

I'm glad you appear to have enjoyed all aspects of YNP!
posted by coffeefilter at 11:17 AM on July 23, 2010