A family member found the carcass of a headless rabbit on top of her car last night. Her father suggested that it may have been left there by a hawk. However, she was involved in a vehicular collision recently in which another motorist was critically injured, and several derogatory comments about her were posted below the online news media report on the accident. Is it common for large bird species to do this? It seems to be a reasonable explanation, but I don’t have much experience living in a forested rural area.
That’s creepy. I do think a hawk could have done it, and I guess I would assume that’s what happened unless there was evidence to the contrary. I’d be locking my doors, though.
While it’s possible, I doubt that the first thing a hawk would do would be to eat the head and then fly off with the rest of the carcass (assuming it then accidentally dropped it on the car). Nor would it likely take a recently killed prey to a car roof in order to feed on it.
If the animal had been killed by a hawk, there might be bruising or talon puncture marks on the back where it hit the prey from above, or as it grasped it to carry it off.
Depending on the weight of the carcass, it would have to be a fairly large hawk. Even a Red-tailed Hawk, the largest common hawk in most of the US, isn’t typically going to lift and carry more than a couple of pounds.
What about an owl? We have been finding cat bits lately and an owl is suspected.
There are large owls in the area. The carcass is in the freezer. I’ve suggested to the family member that she contact the authorities and let them evaluate it.
I was going to suggest great horned owl as a culprit. They’ve been known to behead things.
A hawk did that to a squirrel. Unfortunately he left the body behind right on top of our decorative wishing well in the back yard. Thankfully husband had cleaned most of it up before I got home. Blech.
It would be unusual for a bird to do this, but cats do it routinely. In seasons when rodents are abundant cats normally to eat just the head and either leave the carcasse, or feed it to unweaned young.
The head is where the brains, and hence the greatest concentration of fat, is. Rabbits and other rodents are so lean that, if prey is plentiful, eating the muscle is just empty protein, akin to empty calories for humans. It fills the animal up and prevents it eating more fat, but won’t actually add to weight gains. It’s often only when prey starts to become scarce that cats start to eat entire carcasses.
I also was going to suggest cat. We get headless corpses fairly regularly in our rural neighborhood, and we’re pretty certain it’s either cats or coyotes. I doubt a coyote would be on your car roof tho, while a neighborhood cat or a local stray would think that’s a perfect perch to have a midnight snack.
Could your typical housecat pull off a job like that? I am told that the carcass is fairly small. She used to have an incredibly tiny little Maltese that weighed three pounds, and she says the rabbit appears to have been about the same size. I am familiar with the dog; any respectable cat could have given it a thorough ass-whuppin’.
Cats can and do hunt healthy, full grown rabbits but they generally don’t if anything else presents itself because the match is far too even. IIRC about 50% of the time the rabbit will kick the shit out of the cat and escape. Rabbits are vicious. But just because they prefer not to certainly doesn’t mean that in this instance they didn’t.
And of course this may have been a half-grown rabbit, or a sick or injured adult, something that any respectable stray/feral would jump at the chance to kill.
So my money is still on moggie. As Lasciel says, the roof of a car would be considered the ideal place for a cat to drag a kill, precisely because it does offer protection it from dogs and coyotes.
I would report the incident just in case.
The cats and hawks and owls around here don’t generally take the head and leave the body.
I watch the birds here quite a bit. The hawks and owls grab the animal from behind, grabbing it by the back and neck and then fly off with it. It is usually struggling a bit at this time.
They usually sit somewhere with it such as a tree or rooftop, and appear to squeeze and bite it, then fly off with it to another place to eat it. I never see any waste from the hawks, but I suppose there could be some. I also have not seen them either kill or eat on the ground, but I suppose that could happen, too.
The owls eat all of the animal, bones and all, and throw up the fur and bone after the soft parts have been digested.
I would expect a car roof would not be a good choice for either the kill or the meal as it would be slippery, but I suppose it could happen if that was the best choice in the immediate area. Are there any light claw marks or blood smears on the roof indicating a struggle or a meal?
The cats eat all of the body of the animal leaving the head, tail and feet. Caertainly, they would not do the kill or meal on the rooftop, and they would not eat only the head. Their teeth are too small and fine for that, I think.
Our rabbits are very small and thin. They are not big like the rabbits people keep for pets. They are brown to brownish orange. I can’t tell from your picture if that is a wild rabbit or not.
Are you seriously suggesting that the cats where you live have distinct genetically determined behaviour that is different to everyother cat populationon the planet?
Evidence please.
Cats decapitating rodents is so well established in the scientific literature that your claim that the cats where you live don’t do it is extraordinary, and is going to require some extraordinary evidence to back it up.
I’ll need to see some evidence for this.
Firstly, as Colibri noted it’s going to take a damn big hawk to even lift a rabbit, never mind flying off with it while it’s still struggling. I’ve seen *harriers *kill rabbits, even they disembowel the animal before attempting to fly off with it.
The idea that the hawks where you live carry off live rabbits will require some proof before I’d accept it.
Even eagles will rarely eat the bones of an animal as large as a rabbit. I find it hard to believe that any hawk would be capable of eating rabbit bones.
Can you please provide evidence for this extraordinary claim that the hawks where you live eat bones. Because where I come from the clean long bones and skin is *always *(Blogsome)behind by hawks.
You might not always fond the bones, because scavengers usually clean them up, but I’ve *never *seen a hawk take large prey and consume the bones, as you claim.
When feeding on prey as large as rabbits, even eagles commonly fed on the ground. The inability of most hawks to even attempt to lift a rabbit guarantees that they will be feeding on the ground.
Nonsense. It is uncommon for an owl to even *attempt *to swallow the femur of an adult rabbit. Those large bones are stripped of flesh and left behind.
A car roof isn’t slippery unless it’s wet, and even then for an animal as light as a raptor it would be insignificant.
As already stated, and demonstrated with photographic proof, cats usually tart with the head of rodents, and only consume the lower body parts of prey is scarce.
Interesting.
So you think the photographs are faked? Or you think that those animals are not cats?
How about scientific studies that demonstrate that cats consume rodents head first? Are they also certainly untrue?
Ca3799, general questions is supposed to be for factual answers, not things that you think are true based upon a few casual observations.
A good size female red tail could carry a 2# rabbit into a tree or other low perch, a great horned owl could easily fly off with an adult rabbit. Red tails will often eat thier prey alive they just happen to die in the process of being eaten.
I’ll just come out and say it.
It looks like someone killed and decapitated a rabbit, and left it on the OP’s car to send a message.
Wow. Seriously?
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No, I did not claim my local cats had any “distinct genetically determined behavior.” Did you see me claim that anywhere?
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Three pictures of random headless animals is your scientific evidence? And, you ask me if I think those are fake pictures? That’s an oddly hostile question.
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The study you linked to was about the habits of wild African cats. A small section was about them eating rodents and mole rats, etc. It says the observed cats ate the rodents head first or whole within ten seconds to three minutes. I would assume these are small rodents. It also said they ate the mole rats tail first. But, I don’t really consider this study to be the be-all-and-end-all of cat fine-dining proclivities. Perhaps you could load me up with several studies of the order in which cats consume rodents.
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I never stated that hawks flew away with rabbits or ate rabbit bones. I simply said I did not see any waste.
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I don’t know anything about eagles eating rabbits on the ground. I guess you can be the expert in that. I simply said I had not seen hawks eating on the ground myself, but supposed it could happen.
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You don’t think a car roof would be a slippery place for a bird to alight, especially while trying to eat a possibly squirming and bloody meal? I guess we will just have to disagree here.
You seem a little het up about this topic, and are obviously an expert. Carry on.
OK, we’ll start at the beginning.
Well you claimed that cats in your area didn’t engage in this behaviour. And the only two possibilities for this discrepancy from every other cat population in the world would seem to be either gentic or behavioural.
So since you claim it isn;t genetic, are you suggesting that somebody has *trained *all your local cats not to do this? Or perhaps there is some other explanation for why this doesn’t occur in your local area when it occurs everywhere else?
I know—it looks like a clean, straight cut, like a cut through a sandwich. And there’s no mess anywhere. The carcass is still in the freezer. I think she should take it to the cops and at least see what they have to say. She was t-boned by a motorcyclist at the intersection of two very narrow rural roads around midnight. She had a stop sign, but he didn’t. He flew 60 feet and fractured three vertebrae, and is in pretty bad shape. She simply didn’t see his headlight, and the bike crowd is calling her a dumbass in the comments posted underneath the local newspaper’s online story.
Do you remember the scene in The Godfather where they get back Luca Brasi’s body armor, wrapped in newspaper, with a fish inside? It was an old Italian mafia message to tell that Luca was now sleeping with the fishes.
It is probably something like that. A head-less rabbit on top of a car? Piss off any German’s lately? It could be the Volkswagen mafia.
The only two possibilities?
And now you are suggesting that I think people trained all the local cats to behave some way?
Are you off your meds or something?
Please put your vast expertise to solving the OP’s question.