msteiger said:
Bonejour said:
I'm no CSI expert, but I'm guessing those are not all predator kills. Careful about posting these on other sites if you're not sure what killed them. Good job getting out there though. These pics represent a huge amount of leg work.
I agree. What makes you think these were killed by 'predators' (by which you mean-coyotes?). Any of these could have been killed by a poor shot, a disease, a non-instantly fatal collision with a car, or (for some) age. There is little evidence left to suggest cause of death, except in the last photo...what predator saws off the horns at the top of the skull? I only know one, and it walks on two legs.
I am in most cases sure it was feline or K-9 predator due to much more evidence than what is shown or explained in my post. I've heard several taken down at night & walked up on it within a weeks time with the face chewed off & in most cases the body torn apart.
Think about this a min., A coyote or cat is not likely to risk sickness or death by eating a diseased dead or dying deer. I'm pretty sure we can rule that out. None were near a paved road & were behind private property in a national forest so none were hit by vehicles.
so, just being a wise guy, I guess they all must have been shot by a hunter & never found laying out in the wide open, left to be torn apart by coyotes or found by a mt lion & stashed under the bushes with its innards eaten out & half buried until I find it weeks or months later... :
Guys,If I suspected something, I took pics, reported it & left it.
Some that I find, I suspect fowl play because I come across this quite often & sometimes things look out of place, but if you look closer to the last pic, it was chewed down to the skull cap with teeth marks! That would have to be a pretty jacked up saw to make those marks. I had never seen this myself either but the evidence is in the pic & is why I took it as it lay. It laid there for so long that the grass around the base grew strong from the nutrients when I found it at meadows edge between a fire station & private property well away from public access. & if it were poached, who would remove the antlers & leave them???
ANSWER:
This guy!
This was the picture taken just before the lion.
I know many of the Game Wardens in CA, few on a more personal level & I have shown allot of these pics to Game wardens who's names i will only mention if necessary out of respect of privacy. 1 of them drove up on me while I was engaged on a buck & was kind enough to turn off his truck & gave me the go ahead to pursue the deer.
( no I wasn't road hunting, I saw a deer as I crossed the road & I ran back to get a shot in the clearing just off the road)
The buck never hit the clearing so I walked back to the warden & shot the breeze for 20 minutes about the dead deer I found only 30 yards from where we were talking & took the pic of the velvet spike with the leg over his head. We both suspect poaching in the area & I have seen rifle hunters hunting on opening day of archery in the exact location.
I take these pics as they lay for a reason. I was told that if i were to ever keep anything from these deer that I better have proof that I didn't poach it so I take an "as it lay" pic & if the head or shed is worth taking, than I do. most time now a days, I leave the old decaying sheds & dead heads because they smell really bad, its unsanitary to have rotting heads all over my property, I'm running out of room to put them & I'd rather leave them for wildlife to utilize as a source of calcium by chewing on them to survive the winters when food is most scarce... when we actually get a winter. I'd throw in an LOL! but not having a winter kinda sucks!
Trust me, I wont allow poaching if I can stop it from happening, I report thing like this & much more to the authorities all the time.
If I am out of place for posting this thread or this reply, feel free to PM me. I'm new to forums.
