What Killed This Fawn?

[jbell1981]

I found a dead deer in our yard, not sure what killed it. There is no sign of scavengers where it was found, so it must have survived initially then wondered here and died. 

 

It's located right on the edge of town in Buffalo. We've had roadkill deer in our yard before, but this one was found a couple hundred yards from the road with no obvious blood trail. 

 

It was found last Friday. I noticed last Tuesday that there was only 2 deer feeding in our yard when there had been 3 the past several months. So I'm guessing it died around the 12th. 

 

My guess is it either got hit by a vehicle in an awkward fashion or got caught in some sort of farm machinery and made it to my yard before dying. If another animal did this (coyote or dog?) it had to have been done somewhere else and it survived the initial attack before dying in this location. 

[nofishfisherman]

Hard to tell but I'm guessing you're on the right track with a vehicle or something like that.  If it were a coyote or other predator I'm guessing they'd have kept up the pursuit and in that case it would have been pretty well torn apart. 

 

I'm guessing a vehicle hit it and it wondered around for awhile before finally dying there.  If it went awhile after the hit the blood trail may have long dried up before reaching your land.  Looks like a few small scavengers may have already found it, thinking birds mainly. Coyotes will find it sooner or later. 

[tacklejunkie]

Birds are notorious for picking out the rear end of a dead deer. I’ve seen it quite often with roadkill deer when ravens and crows and Eagles find them first. Any canine predator would tear it apart more and there would be a sign of a chase

 

  When my boys were little, we went snowshoeing up near Isabella, Minnesota and found a deer that was killed by wolves and it’s a pretty violent site 

[smurfy]

54 minutes ago, tacklejunkie said:

Birds are notorious for picking out the rear end of a dead deer. I’ve seen it quite often with roadkill deer when ravens and crows and Eagles find them first. Any canine predator would tear it apart more and there would be a sign of a chase

 

  When my boys were little, we went snowshoeing up near Isabella, Minnesota and found a deer that was killed by wolves and it’s a pretty violent site 

i ran across a wolf kill also snowmobiling after a lite fresh snow. looked like a blood bath...blood all over........... looked awefully fresh and nothing but hair for evidence. was actually kinda spooky..

[bobbymalone]

CWD

 

[chaffmj]

Here is a wolf kill from 2 years ago in my yard. It is quite a bloody mess. Nothing was left but tufts of fur, the [PoorWordUsage] sack and some bone pieces.  What? Since when is po op a bad word!

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by chaffmj