my findings were many.. lots of sign. trails, rubs, droppings, tracks. the rubs are what i'm confused about. 99% of the rubs i found were really high up, which makes me think it was a moose. rubs everywhere so obviously whatever made them spent quite a bit of time in this area. the thing is, i never found one single pile of moose droppings. i did find some large droppings, but the size and shape make me think they're deer droppings. they were big, around an inch long, and not round. typically, the moose scat i find is much larger and more round shaped vs. deer scat which is smaller and elongated. i also found some smaller scat piles that were obviously young deer. but the tall rubs and lack of obvious moose scat is what's throwing me off. all of the rubs were on smaller sized trees ranging from 1-5" in diameter. some were rubbed clean from shin to shoulder on me. others were waist high, and some were chest high.
here's an example of the scat. 2 different piles to show the difference in size.
here's some examples of some of the rubs. some high up, some low (that center horizontal branch is all rubbed up)
shoulder height.
found a decent track.. that leaf is about 4" long.
i couldn't find any obvious bedding sites, just one "possible" bed with some hair in it. no rubs in it's immediate vacinity but near trails that went along the side of this ridge. given the amount of scat in this area alone, the deer obviously use this area pretty often. i'm thinking it's a travel corridor but i could be wrong. your thoughts on all this? thanks!
