Al Thieme, Cascadia Wild!

Al Thieme is an animal tracker, naturalist educator, and executive director for Cascadia Wild!, a conservation and environmental education organization. Currently, he is searching for forest carnivores in Mt. Hood National Forest.

Dave and I arrive at the trailhead at 9:00 a.m., still buzzing from the green tea we drank on the ride over from Portland. Soft snow conditions fuel our tracking appetites as we stand at the base of the hill that ascends into the Badger Creek Wilderness Area. As the most remote and least-used area in the Mt. Hood National Forest during the winter, Badger Creek offers the best wild area for lynx and wolverine to roam. Our ascent begins easily in the fresh snow and then turns treacherous as we climb upward on the dim, icy trail through forests of ancient western hemlock, western red cedar, and ponderosa pine. Finally, we are forced to don snowshoes; their crampons offer us moderate traction on the slope, instead of coccyx-cracking falls.

We reach the ridge -- the border of the wilderness area -- just when I think my body might burst from the exertion. Immediately, we know the wilderness area has been doing its part for biodiversity; we find tracks we have not seen earlier in the day -- snowshoe hare, Douglas squirrel, and bobcat!

We stop, measure the bobcat tracks, and mark them on the GPS and in the notebook. We examine the overall shape of the track to distinguish it from a coyote or fox track. Is it more round than oval-shaped? Yes. The approximate length and width measurement is 1 7/8 inches by 1 7/8 inches, which falls in the range of typical bobcat track measurements. Are there claw marks repeatedly showing in the track? No. This could be an indication of a feline versus a canine, since felines have retractable claws. What does the gait look like? Interestingly, even in areas of shallow snow there appears to be an extra mark, as if the bobcat were dragging its toes. This is unusual, for most forest predators are masters of energy conservation, maintaining precise gaits with the cadence of a metronome. Maybe the bobcat was carrying something in its mouth? A snowshoe hare, perhaps?

It is noon and we decide to follow the bobcat trail as far as we can. The bobcat leaves the wilderness area -- ignoring our human boundaries -- and continues down the slope back toward the valley. It basically drops straight down the side of the mountain, as if it had a destination or a meeting in mind. By 3:00 p.m., we have followed the trail to reach a patch of woods near a mountain stream. In the woods, the cat, which seems to be a male, appears to have encountered another bobcat (likely a female, judging from the smaller tracks) that had been lying under a western hemlock tree. We can see the four- to five-hour-old tracks where she had approached the tree, and then we see the depression in the foliage where she had lain waiting.

As far as we can tell, the female stood up when the male bobcat arrived, and he followed her across a log, sniffing her. She continued across the creek, while he circled a small tree and dropped a scat where she had been standing. He then crossed the creek 30 feet downstream, delicately walking across a slippery, snow-covered log with a snowshoe hare in his mouth. Across the creek, the telltale toe drag tells us he was still carrying his dinner. The two bobcats paralleled each other on the slope as they disappeared into what Dave calls "the best habitat to lose a human in," a rough-and-tumble jackstraw landscape that will have to wait for another day.