From the look of its teeth the whitetail doe must not have been that old when it died. There was little decay and all the teeth were present. Its carcass was fully intact when I first found it in my in-law’s woods over two years ago. There was no visible sign of trauma although I didn’t turn the body over for a full inspection. I suspect that a hunter’s bullet found it and it eventually fell on this spot of ground. I suppose a coyote could have brought it down but its apparent age and vitality made my theory of man as predator the more likely scenario.
All that remains two years later of this once bounding, leaping creature is the skull, a femur, and a few vertebrae and ribs. What once was flesh and fiber is now just a few bones. Each trip back to the site over the last two years revealed a different stage of decay of this, our largest permanent resident wild mammal. Although sorry to see such a beautiful creature brought down in its prime, I was able to witness how nature buries its dead.
Perhaps the first undertakers to arrive were coyotes tearing open the carcass to get at the flesh and internal organs. Circling high overhead the turkey vultures, using their keen eyesight and sense of smell, soon swooped in to join the feast. The ground turned up around the carcass indicated quite a wake of vultures. A murder of crows may have also joined in. Also joining the feast were smaller rodents who gnawed on the exposed bones. Portions of the carcass were eventually drug off and cached or consumed.
Even before the coyotes and vultures arrived, much smaller creatures discovered the body. The first were likely the blowflies possibly arriving within minutes of death to deposit their eggs. Other flesh flies also soon arrived. Ants were also likely at the carcass during the early stages feeding both on the carcass flesh as well as eggs and young larvae of the first arriving flies. A variety of beetles also came and went during the decomposition process. They included rove, carrion, hide, bone, and scarab beetles, to name a few.
The work of all these undertakers was quite effective. For two years this deer provided sustenance to a forest community. Its flesh and bones given so other animals could live. As I glanced up from writing this short piece, I saw a vulture gliding across the sky near where the carcass once laid. Preparing once again to participate somewhere in the burial of another of nature’s creatures.