Does this belong to a mountain lion/bobcat?
 

I came across these scratch marks/poop while walking my dog in the woods today - I live in a heavily wooded area in the mountains of Western NC. The scratch marks seem to be too low to be a black bear. Doubt it's a rutting buck - marks look reasonably fresh, wrong season and the marks seem to have been dragged from top to bottom.

The poop (yeah, I took a picture of it) nearby contained a ton of light-colored hair, so I don't think it belonged to a dog, bear or coyote.

The scratch marks/poop kind of look like they belong to a big cat. Suggestions?

my first thought was a young bear. I know little about their breeding habits, though.

a big cat could do that but I don't see why it would do that. Be careful. :)

Looks like whatever it was, it recently ate a rabbit. Not too different from the junk coyotes leave behind in the hills of California. They eat lots of rabbits. The tree scratches remind me of a small bear. Mountain lions tend to shred the bark (more lightly than this seems to be) when they mark their territory while bears rip it off entirely (like your photo displays).

I appreciate the input. Turns out it was a bobcat. Saw him last night.

Awesome! That's an exciting experience. Thanks for the follow-up.

I was thinking it was a cat of some kind, the poop def suggest so. Anyway awesome find.

Carry a big ass gun when you walk your dog. :eek:

Did you see the bobcat again?