Cannibal deer

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25cschaefer

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I shot a little 2x3 whitetail at about 20yds as I was crunhing my way through the snow on my way back to the truck (he looked at me and went back to eating) with a 30-06 loaded with 180gr Nosler Ballistic Tips (no it didn't expand). After I shot I saw a doe behind me lift her head and she watched me while I gutted the buck. He was about a mile in a walk in hunting area, so I gutted him and drug him down to the trail. I made my way back to the truck to get the sled and headed up the hill again. I got about 50 yds from the gut pile and two does busted up. I walked over to find it about five feet from where it was and the stomach torn open, the contents thrown around the area and about half the liver mushed and or missing. It also looked like they were chewing the fat up and spitting it out. The does left bloody tracks and a blood trail as the ran.

Has anyone else seen something like this?
Should we be preparing for the zombie deer apocalypse?
Could the young deer be influanced by the new cool kids (wolves) in town? (no I am not a wolf conspericy theorist, that was a joke)
 
Bury a gut pile??? Are you kidding me? I ain't kicking away a foot of snow to TRY to dig a hole in frozen rock infested, ground. Coyotes gonna eat, too. Besdies, I left my entrenchment tool in Viet--Nam
 
Pacsd said:
Bury a gut pile??? Are you kidding me? I ain't kicking away a foot of snow to TRY to dig a hole in frozen rock infested, ground. Coyotes gonna eat, too. Besdies, I left my entrenchment tool in Viet--Nam
Click to expand...
It's a good thing I don't hunt in the north then... Where I hunt, the ground doesn't freeze.
 
I've seen it, I guess its pretty common. My best friend shot a deer in the afternoon chewing on the gut pile from the deer he shot in the morning. I guess it's not too strange if you consider that does eat their own placenta after giving birth. Many hooved animals do this.

Bury a gut pile? Mine magically disappear over night.... Why bother? :D
 
FWIW I grew up hunting on private land belonging to other people (with permission). My grandfather taught me to respect others' property (mostly fallow farmland), and as such I clean up ALL my mess. Nobody wants a bloody pile of mess left on their land anywhere, even if it does feed the local wildlife. I'd imagine the animals interested in eating or exploring the pile of mess dig it up anyway, but it is what it is. There's another thread going on right now about "how do you hunt" ... That's how I do it.

There have been times that I brought the guts home for my uncle's dogs, but usually I bury it, especially if I'm camping in the area. The last thing I want hanging around when I'm sleeping in a tent are the predators that a pile of warm bloody guts tend to attract, not to mention the smell that carries on the wind. :uhoh::barf:
 
It must be a regional thing, maybe because they will never get a chance to stink in the north.

No one up here thinks of a gut pile as a mess. Maybe up by the buildings, but not in the woods.

Nobody wants a bloody pile of mess left on their land anywhere, even if it does feed the local wildlife.
Click to expand...

That is a broad statement. I grew up on a farm, work on a farm, and am friends with many farmers. I do not know anyone who gives a second thought to a gut pile. Please do not try to paint the OP, myself, and most other hunters as slobs because we leave the guts where the deer dies. What you do is your business, but it is not the normal practice.
 
Actually, a lot of typically herbivorous animals will eat meat, sort of as noted in the article above. Being cannibalistic isn't really much of a consideration for animals. My lab partner and I published a paper on squirrel carnivory and thought it was pretty interesting until this paper came out and really showed the exteniveness of squirrel carnivory and even predation on other animals. Callahan was nice enough to cite us despite how naive we were at the time. https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/ojs/index.php/wnan/article/viewFile/480/1398

Turns out that many species of squirrels are carnivorous, especially pregnant or lactating females who are in need of protein or minerals.

Rabbits, cattle, goats, pigs, and many other animals or opportunistic carnivores.

Something to keep in mind is the classifications such as carnivore and herbivore or even insectivore are just indicators of common diet, but not of all diet.
 
Wow, you took that to a place I didn't intend. I wasn't implying that anybody is a slob.

My statement was overly broad ... Perhaps I should have said "nobody I know".
I certainly know I'd feel a bit disrespected if I allowed someone to hunt my land, then went out to find 20lbs of guts in a pile under a tree somewhere. Yes the guts feed scavengers, but they also draw predators (I don't know too many farmers that want predator species hanging around any more than there already are unless they don't raise stock that is vulnerable to predator species).

If you guys don't bury the guts, that's fine by me, I don't give a hoot how anyone hunts as long as it doesn't endanger anyone.

It might be a regional thing... Much of the farmland I grew up hunting with gramps was also bear country (black bears), and we did a lot of camping so that may have had something to do with it as well.
 
shiftyer1 said:
I would bet that is the reason, although the doe hanging in the tree 20 feet from the tents probably voids the safety measure.
Click to expand...
Lol, you're right! Fortunately we would generally bleed the deer and quarter it where we gutted it, bury the guts, and then pack it in a large ice chest back at camp. I never really thought about it before, but we never once camped within sight of the "kill spot".

The few bears I remember encountering were in the early morning or late evening, and usually when we were close to water.

One year I remember spotting a very large black bear fishing probably 30-40 yds upstream from us (we blamed the bear for our poor catch that day) and it quite pointedly ignored us as we quietly packed up our gear and left the area. We left him (or maybe her? I don't know how to tell the difference with bears) the three fish we caught and high tailed it out of there.
 
Bears have an awesome nose. You better bury them guts deep. Lots of bears live around here too. They never seem to bother anything but bird feeders and trash cans.
 
Rabbits, cattle, GOATS, pigs, and many other animals or opportunistic carnivores.

I don't know, I have 3 goats and although they eat some wierd stuff they are pretty picky. I had a cow chew on my baseball for a while till she spit it out, and pigs will eat EVERYTHING. Chickens LOVE to eat chicken.

I think easy access to greens is the best explanation. The rest was probably just trampled?
 
Shiftyer1- The stomach was opened, I didn't do it so I'm not sure how much was in there before but it seemed like it was about a third full and a good half gallon worth strewn about the area. The liver was bitten (it kind of looked like it was mushed and then pulled on), not trampled, which is what I found to be very strange because that has to be the most pungently bloody part of an animal besides the blood of course.
 
I have not seen deer act this way,but I have seen pheasants do a similar thing.I travel regularly to North Dakota delivering oilfield pipe to the Bakken field.In winter,the pheasants feed at the road's edge when the snow is deep.Naturally,they get nailed by vehicles en masse.We often return the next day to find pheasants feeding on their dead buddies in the road....And on the gut pile thing,if the land owner does not care,I come back the next day and hunt the coyotes who clean the mess up.
 
Nobody wants a bloody pile of mess left on their land anywhere,
Click to expand...

some do. it attracts targets such as coyotes and wild hogs, bobcat/lynx, fox etc... sellable furs and sometimes edible meats... yup gut piles are ok if not too close to my house.
 
I'm one of those land owners that do want the gut pile left. I tell visiting hunters where to leave the gut pile and usally have the site marked. Sorry guys, I would rather shoot the coyotes than the deer.
 
Interesting. One of our property owners does not want the gutpile left, and we field dress on another aquaintance's property. The gutpile is mostly gone the next morning, and completely gone a day later. No smell, no mess.
 
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