smansfield's Identifications

In Beaver Dam Park, an East Brunswick municipal park

Fresh marks on a live pitch pine, along the path. They were not here 2 days ago.

The highest marks are at eye level.
Addendum:
I added 2 pictures to help locate the tree.

Marks on an American sweetgum.
1.50 m from the ground.

In Ireland Brook Park (a County park), along the blue trail. The terrain is flat.

The tree in question has a blue rectangular blaze (picture 7). It can be found relatively easily.

The blue trail crosses the pipeline open area. There are about 4 blue rectangular blazes between the open area and the tree of interest.

UPDATED - Tried to find any tracks leading up to the scat, but nothing caught my eye. Did add 2 new pictures at the end to show the relative size of nearby, typical, coyote scat. Also added two pictures of the scat rearranged to show its approximate total length of 12-13" - DEFINITELY not a coyote ‼️

This is by far the largest wild animal scat I've seen in the 4 mile radius where I hike daily. It contains larger bone fragments than any I've seen in coyote scat. Spent some time looking for tracks into the area, but sundown couldn't be stopped. Will definitely be back this afternoon to search again.

Thinking mustelid, perhaps.

My boot is 12"/30.5 cm long. My gauntlet mitt is 14"/35.5 cm long. My wood staff is 67" long.

@jonpoppele, @beartracker, @oliversw... we're hoping you might be able to weigh in, if you had a moment! :)