Scavengers aplenty — video shows visitors to dead buck

Nobody ever likes to find a buck dead.

Years of watching and waiting for the buck to become a trophy while feeding corn and tending food plots is a lot of time and effort spent.

When a buck dies of natural causes, even though it is nature’s way, it is still a tough loss for any hunter or ranch manager. So it was when a buck was found dead last season on a lease in North Texas. A nice 8-point with good potential was gone, but we thought he could still be useful.

So LSON’s David J. Sams pulled the buck to an open area and placed a trail camera pointed at the carcass to see what kind of predators would visit the buffet of rotting venison that draws coyotes, ravens, birds of prey and other animals like a moth to a flame.

The results were great — lots of activity on the game camera night and day. First, the ravens came as the buck bloated in the heat. Then, at night, the coyotes came — starting at the hind quarters and working their way forward. The hawks followed, and the trail camera pictures gave us a good picture of how many predators were in the area — good information for anyone on a deer lease.

It was interesting to note the coyotes only came at night for the first few days the buck was there. They also drug the carcass around as it got lighter.

It was also interesting that only after the deer was badly decomposed, other bucks began showing up in the pictures.

Watch the short video below for the two-month time lapse: