Strange Prints.....

Hey there..

First post here, found the site via google.

Ok so on a recent trip to my holiday house I took some friends pig hunting in deep bush that is scarcley visited by people. There had been alot of rain in the area which made it really good for tracking. Near the edge of a stream I spotted some footprints in shallow pine needles that were a bit larger than what I normally come across. Upon closer inspection I soon realised that they were not pig tracks.... now the area where this took place is on a small quarantine island located between the north and south islands of New Zealand, in an area called the Marlborough Sounds. The only animals of any resonable size are wild pig, sheep, goat & cows. Ive been hunting the island for over 9 years now and have never come across anything but the above mentioned animals and have never seen prints like these before.

Any ideas on what these could belong to? As you can see Ive artisiclly outlined the print to make it easier to see... 4 evenly sized toes..

Pics here:
i146.photobucket.com...
i146.photobucket.com...
i146.photobucket.com...

[edit on 25-11-2008 by nz_hunter]

There is no known animal that has a foot print like this, not even the Bigfoot. My gut feeling is that this shape is man made

Of those pics, nothing inside the pic is broken, yo have a spot that has the pine needles missing, that's it. The little pollen dispensers from the pine trees are sitting on top of the print. Not a bad thing, except there are none pressed into the mud.
The pollen dispensers (sorry, forgot their name) are mixed with the pine needles, so they probably fell at about the same time. But, there are none that are pressed into the mud, and only the pine needles are missing from the empty spot there.

it looks more like something pulled the pine needles back, either a person, or maybe an animal looking for food. A print wouldn't have moved the pine needles away.

I'm confused was this a set of foot prints or just a single print?
it sounds to me as if it's man made.
the people you were with, was there a chance that one of them went ahead and may of had enough time to make these prints?

I'm afraid I don't see any impression at all. And a picture showing many tracks from a height would help to show that there were indeed a set of tracks.

I too am a bit puzzled by the lack of light coloured needles in the centre of the track.

I think you needed the tracks to be showing in a plain mud or sand bed, so the contrast could be photographed. If there really was an impression then a plaster-cast would be the way to capture it.

must be the cookie monster

Sorry, it doesn't look like a print at all.

There are no signs that I can see in those pictures that anything stepped in the spot shown. It just looks like someone made a little clearing.

Thanks for the replies....

Well first of all, I can assure you all that no member of the hunting party was able to get ahead in order to make the print, as I was the only person carrying a rifle and as such I made sure I was walking point at all times.

It is also HIGHLY unlikey that it was made by anyone not belonging to our party due to the remoteness of the area given the fact that in my 9 years of hunting in the area I have never come across another soul in this area... Honestly, its as remote as it gets.... Theres no power, no phones, no cellphone coverage, no TV etc.... I roughly calculate that I have spent over 2600 hours hiking and hunting in this area during the 5 years I lived there, not including the other 4 years of hunting trips to this area. The shortest hike in to the area where I took those photos is atleast 5 hours if you knew the area, uphill from the shoreline of the island. So the chances of some random person being at the same place earlier that day is so minimal... The reason I say they were made that day is due to the heavy rain for the two days leading up to when I was there, they would have been flattened for sure.

Im mildly offeneded at the comments about them not being tracks, as I have mentioned, I am a very experienced hunter. I have spent 5 years living in this area, hunting and tracking in order to put food on the table. These were definatley prints, without a doubt. The photos do not do what I saw justice, as seems to be the case with most of these mysterious things.

There were more than one, on each side of the stream. They were roughly spaced a little shorter than my stride, but not close enough to be an animal with four legs. I did try to take a photo to show the spacing, but as I have mentioned, Im a hunter not a photographer and you cannot make out anything from that photo. I can post it if it helps.

As far as capturing a plaster cast goes, Im sorry but I dont carry supplies like that whilst trying to shoot pigs in the woods on an island!

I wouldnt have wasted my time searching for this site, joining photobucket, creating an account here etc if I was not 100% sure that these were footprints of some kind. I can post some more photos but they are worse than the ones I have allready posted, so they probably wont be of any use.

Look, I was worried enough to put one in the spout and take the saftey off for the return hike back to base. As I said, been hunting there for 9 years and never felt, well scared before....

I am an outdoors enthusiast/hunter myself, but not american't though. I live in Africa. I reckon that was fabricated as well.

If there are any doubt, please refer to pic below:

If there are any more pics, it won't hurt to post them up. You have to see it from our point of view, there is hardly anything to go on in the picture you posted. The only thing we can see is that the new pine needles have somehow been moved away from an area, that is all we can see.

All you need for plaster cast is a bag of plaster and some water, and a container to mix it in. Normally this would mean the only extra thing you have to carry with you is the plaster powder as you normally would have the other 2 items already.

Granted you were not expecting to need it, so it is really just advice for your next trip, or if it were somewhere you frequented, you could have gone back

[edit on 27/11/2008 by Wig]

just a minor criticism of your photograph - but how big is your hand ?

comparing an unknown dimension to another unknow dimension doesnt really help matters

it is IMHO preferable to use an object of known demension

a round of ammo from your rifle ?

a mobile phone

a cigarette packet

a NZ dollar note

an AA sice battery from your torch

etc etc etc

all objects of known and fixed size that give a meaningfull size reference - a hand that we do not know the size of gives a very poor reference point

just a suggestion - cos few people carry rulers / tape measures around with them - but do have several items of known size

I am going to have to agree that it is very hard to tell the size, since we do not know the size of your hand in comparison.

I would say upload your other pictures, it does not hurt to see what the other ones show. Some people may be able to spot something in those pictures that you did not notice when you looked at them.

I do not want to discredit you as a hunter and knowing that land, but to me it doesn't seem like anything "stepped" down in the place, because the pine needles seemed to be push away to make the "print" rather and the pine needles being squished into the group like they would if something stepped down on it.

They are not fresh tracks.
So why would you be scared?

i146.photobucket.com...

Theres a link to another pretty bad photo but it has a .303 round next to it.

But the case is now closed! I got in contact with the local department of conservation who after alot of question asking and supplying them with a photo, very begrudgingly came clean that they had let loose 6 emu onto the island to see if a population can be established!

So it seems they were prints, but not with a 4th toe! Maybe it was dragging its feet or something

Thanks for the input tho.