The biggest carnivorous mammal in Robin's Wood is the black bear, ursus americanus. Of course it is not only an Oregon mammal and lives all over the USA wherever there are forests or swamps. The only areas where it does not live are the grassy plains and deserts. Also it is not always black and is often dark brown. The black bear is more of a scavenger than a hunter although it will sometimes kill and eat small animals who are slow or helpless like fawns but it eats anything and loves garbage.
For the past couple of years we have had three or four bears roaming in the forest going from one farm to another raiding garbage cans and livestock-feed barrels. We did not have a problem with these bears because we do not have an outdoor garbage can - I take my garbage down to the RV park. Whenever someone's garbage cans were raided, they would then secure them with chains and locks so last fall the bears started breaking branches off peoples' fruit trees to get to the fruit.
This summer there have been no reports of these bears and I figure some of my neighbors got fed up and killed them. I'm not sure what happened because I don't know all my neighbors. (This will be my fourth winter here and I have still not met all my neighbors because the farms are so spread out through the forest.)
Bears usually run away from humans but the sows can be dangerous when they have cubs to protect. It is not wise to approach cubs even if they are so damn cute. It is also not wise to climb a tree to get away from an enraged bear. They can climb better and faster and are much bigger. A full-grown male can raise itself up to almost 6 feet and weigh nearly six hundred pounds.
Here are some pics of the black bear. (The pics of the other critters are posted elsewhere and can be seen by clicking on Pic at the end of each profile.)
The mountain lion, puma concolor, or cougar used to range all the way from Canada to Patagonia but has been exterminated nearly everywhere except in the mountainous areas of the West. There are a few left in the Everglades and northern Maine. In California their range is being intruded upon by growing suburbs and quite a few joggers and hikers have been killed (and eaten.)
In my neck of the woods, there is still so much undisturbed forest for them to live in that they seldom come anywhere near humans but there are also large tracts of forest right in the heart of the nearest town and a cougar was seen in a park abutting a lake a few years ago. Out here in the boonies, its all forest with only a few farmhouses here and there and the folks from whom we bought this farm saw two cougars in the forest behind the house the year before we moved here. (They were the first people to build a house on this land and only lived here for two years before we bought it. The land was logged about 30 years ago and then remained undisturbed until a few years ago.)
At first we used to blithely wander into the forest unarmed but eventually realized that it was best to carry a gun when leaving the relative safety of the two acres which is cleared around the house. Unarmed humans are no match for a cougar. They can grow to 9 feet long from nose to tail-tip and weigh nearly 200 pounds and, pound for pound, are a lot stronger than us. Pic.
The bobcat, lynx rufus, is much smaller than the cougar - usually about 3 or 4 feet from nose to tail-tip and weighing up to 30 pounds - but, if you have ever been attacked by a house cat weighing only 5 or 6 pounds, then you know that a 30 pound wild cat could kill you if it wanted to. There's a saying that, if house cats were the size of dogs, they would be illegal because they are so dangerous. Well the bobcat is the size of a dog.
Bobcats are a bigger problem for livestock here than cougars. Nearly every farm here has chickens and bobcats can kill chickens as easily as house cats can kill mice. Well, bobcats also kill house cats and small dogs. Last year our nearest neighbors' chickens were decimated by a couple of bobcats who snuck in through a gap between the roof and the wall of the chicken coop. Pic.
The coyote, canis latrans, is also a danger to livestock and often kill small sheep and goats. Coyotes can grow to 4 and a half feet long from nose to tail-tip and weigh over 40 pounds - the size of the smaller of our two border collies. (The bigger collie weighs over 60 pounds.) Fortunately they are afraid of dogs and only attack docile livestock - and they love chickens. Pic.
We only have one kind of fox here, the gray fox, urocyon cinereoargenteus, although there are red foxes, vulpes vulpes, only a few miles north and east of us. They can grow to 3 and a half feet long from nose to tail-tip but they have very long fluffy tails and seldom weigh more than twelve pounds. The gray fox is also a chicken killer. It's the only carnivore that I have seen here during the day. Pic.
The fisher, martes pennanti, is seldom seen anywhere else except in the Umpquah and Siskiyou Mountains to the east and south of us so I should probably not include it as a "carnivore of Robin's Wood." They are extremely reclusive and few people have seen them here. Fishers are about the same size as gray foxes - up to four feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighing about 12 pounds. Pic.
The American marten, martes americana, or pine marten has adapted to life among humans and is also a danger to small livestock. They will even kill small chickens although they seldom weigh more than three pounds and are only about two feet long from nose to tail-tip. Mostly they are egg-stealers. Pic.
The short-tailed weasel, mustela erminea, is known as the stoat in Europe during summer when it has a brown coat and an ermine in winter when it has a white coat. It feeds mostly on rodents in the forest. Eventhough this little weasel can grow up to a foot long from nose to tail-tip, it only weighs about 3 ounces. Pic.
The long-tailed weasel, mustela frenata, is also long and skinny growing up to one and a half foot long from nose to tail-tip but weighing only about 14 ounces. This weasel also has a white winter coat and, like its smaller cousin, feeds mostly on rodents in the forest but can also kill rabbits much bigger than itself. Weasels don't attack chickens but they can be egg-stealers. Pic.
The American mink, mustela vison, is our largest weasel. It is nearly always found only near rivers and lakes. It grows to over 2 feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighs up to 3 pounds. Fortunately this weasel is not usually a danger to livestock because it seldom approaches human dwellings. Pic.
The river otter, lontra canadensis, grows up to four feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighs up to 20 pounds. Like its cousin, the mink, it is seldom found anywhere else except near rivers and lakes and is therefore not a threat to livestock. They eat mostly frogs and crawdads. Pic.
The ringtail, bassariscus astutus, is found locally only in the Umpquah and Siskiyou Mountains east and south of us and down into Mexico. They can grow up to two and a half feet long but their tails are long and fluffy so they seldom weigh more than two and a half pounds. Oldtimers call this critter the "miners' cat" supposedly because the goldminers of California and Oregon used to keep them to kill rats in their camps. Pic.
The raccoon, procyon lotor, of course is found all over the US except the desert Southwest. I had never seen a raccoon until I moved to the USA. My first encounter with raccoons was when I came to California in 1978. I was too poor to rent an apartment while I was living in LA so I pitched a tent in a campground near Malibu and lived there while I worked and saved money.
One night just as I was about to go to sleep in my tent I heard these weird chattering noises outside and the sound of feet pattering around my tent. The next day I told the hippie guy who had a tent next to mine about it. He told me that the campground was built on a sacred Indian burial ground and those were the spirits of angry Indians trying to scare me away. I didn't really believe him but I had never heard such eerie noises in my life so I wasn't sure.
A few years later, when I had a groundfloor apartment in San Francisco, I heard the same noises one night and went outside to check it out. That was the first time I saw raccoons but not the last as San Francisco has a huge raccoon population which scavenge out of garbage cans and steal dog food. Raccoons can grow up to three feet long from nose to tail-tip and weigh 30 pounds. They can and do attack chickens and are the worst egg-stealers. Pic.
The striped skunk, mephitis mephitis, is also a notorious egg-stealer. After deer, opossums, raccoons and porcupines, they are the most common roadkill around here and I love getting a whiff of skunk musk through the car window as I pass a squashed one. Yes, I know I'm weird. I would not like to get a full blast of skunk musk but I really like the smell of it in small whiffs. I don't know which is worse: our dogs attacking porcupines and getting snouts full of quills or attacking skunks and getting sprayed. Once you've pulled the porcupine quills out with pliers, they're gone but the skunk stink seems to last for weeks. The striped skunk grows to two and a half feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighs up to 9 pounds. Pic.
The spotted skunk, spilogale gracilis, is found only on the West Coast from southwest BC to Mexico. It is called "gracilis" because of the graceful little dance that it does when it is agitated. Unlike the striped skunk which turns its body into a U shape to spray, the spotted skunk stands on its fore-paws and flips its tail over its head and lets fly with its spray seemingly standing on its head. It's almost worth getting sprayed just to see this comical act. It's much smaller than the striped skunk and seldom grows longer than two feet from nose to tail-tip and weighs only two pounds. Pic.
The opossum, didelphis virginiana, is originally from the eastern states. I'm not sure how it arrived here but I'm guessing it escaped from zoos and it is now found all along the West Coast from BC to California. Possums make up the bulk of our roadkill apparently because they are rather slow moving and love to scavenge on other roadkill. We also find lots of dead half-eaten young possums all over our land - victims of our cats. I find them fascinating because they are our only marsupial and are unlike any other critter here. They are mostly insectivores but will eat anything including rodents and birds - and they'll steal eggs too. Possums grow up to two and half feet from nose totail-tip and weigh about three pounds. Pic.
Looking back on what I wrote, I realize that our chickens are probably so vicious because they have so many predators. It's not a safe cozy life for chickens out here in the boonies.
