Animal Tracks in Snow: Identify Prints by Pattern

The fastest way to identify animal footprints in snow is to look at the whole trail first. Nature Tracking's guide makes gait patterns the primary identification tool in snow, because single prints are often hidden at the bottom of deep leg holes or softened by melting, while the arrangement of prints survives. Four patterns cover most backyard and trail tracks:

• One line of single prints: walkers such as foxes, coyotes, cats and deer, where the hind foot lands in or near the front print. Salt Lake City Parks notes coyotes walk in a straight line stepping the rear foot inside the print of the front foot.
• Groups of four in a tall, narrow shape: rabbits. Salt Lake City Parks describes a bounding pattern of two large ovals and two small ovals.
• Groups of four in a wide, blocky shape: squirrels, with the larger hind feet landing ahead of the smaller front feet; Nature Tracking notes the trail usually leads to a tree.
• Pairs, or hand-shaped prints side by side: raccoons and opossums, and members of the weasel family.

Once the pattern gives you the group, one clear print confirms the species.

These four cause most of the questions after a snowfall.

• Coyote: Salt Lake City Parks gives prints 2.5 to 3.5 inches long, dog-like, in a straight line with the hind foot stepping into the front print.
• Fox: also a straight-line walker, but Salt Lake City Parks notes foxes drag their feet and have furry feet, so the impressions are less clear. The Woodland Trust gives a fox print as about 5 cm long by 4 cm wide, narrower than a dog's, with a diamond-shaped pad.
• Domestic dog: four toes, claws usually visible and a triangular heel pad; Nature Tracking describes dogs moving at a gallop.
• House cat: Salt Lake City Parks gives 1 to 1.5 inches across, four toes and no claw marks. Nature Tracking adds that a cat's heel pad is large (about four toe-widths), whereas a dog's is about three.

A bobcat looks like a larger house cat and, like it, leaves no claw marks, which Salt Lake City Parks uses to separate it from coyotes and foxes. A mountain lion print is about 3.75 inches across with four clawless toes and a large three-lobed rear pad.

Tracks with five long toes that look like small hands belong to a short list.

• Raccoon: Salt Lake City Parks describes prints resembling small human hands, with the hind feet carrying more weight and printing deeper.
• Opossum: similar to raccoon, but the hind foot has a splayed, opposable thumb with no claw (Salt Lake City Parks). If one toe sticks out sideways like a thumb, it is an opossum.
• Striped skunk: prints 2 to 2.5 inches long, cat-like in size but with visible claws on five toes (Salt Lake City Parks).
• Bear: prints resemble human footprints and the back foot lands near the front. Salt Lake City Parks notes bears are best tracked in early spring, because in deep winter most are denned. A fresh bear trail in midwinter snow is unusual, so check the size against a known object before concluding.

Full species pages with scat and track details: raccoon, Virginia opossum, striped skunk and black bear.

Hoofed animals leave two-part, heart-shaped prints, and size sorts them. Salt Lake City Parks gives:

• Deer: 2 to 3.5 inches long, with a walking stride of 13 to 26 inches
• Elk: 4 to 4.75 inches long, rounder than deer, with a 3-to-5-foot walking stride and 15 feet or more when bounding
• Moose: 5 to 7 inches long, the toes forming an upside-down heart

Nature Tracking warns that in deep snow deer tracks are hard to read, because the hind feet step into the front prints and the details disappear into leg holes. In that case measure the stride and the width of the trail rather than the print. In Britain the Woodland Trust sorts deer by print length: muntjac about 3 cm, roe 5 cm, fallow 7 cm and red deer 9 cm.

Snow tracks are harder than mud tracks in ways that catch people out:

• Melting enlarges prints. Nature Tracking notes that melting causes dramatic expansion and distortion, so a fox print a day old in sun can pass for a coyote's. Measure prints in shade, or the freshest ones.
• Depth hides the foot. In deep snow the print sits at the bottom of a hole; the width of the hole says little about the foot. Use stride length and trail pattern instead.
• Snow type matters. Salt Lake City Parks recommends fresh, thin snow: dry snow blows away and deeper snow obscures prints.
• Look for other signs. The Woodland Trust suggests checking for droppings, fur, feathers or nests near the trail, which often settles an uncertain print.

Photograph the trail from above with a glove, ruler or phone beside it, then one clear print straight down with low side light. NatureLens gives free scans every day, so you can photograph the plant or sign and get a suggested name in seconds, then confirm it with the checks on this page.