# What about dead wolves, deer, rabbits, etc.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [September 17, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-dead-wolves-deer-rabbits-etc/419541 "2007-09-17T21:22:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-dead-wolves-deer-rabbits-etc/419541/1 "2007-09-17T21:22:07Z")
Regarding the [where are all the dead pigeons](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_083.html) column, I’ve wondered the same thing about dead deer and large game as well as predator remains. I’ve walked in the woods all of my life and save for an occasional antler or shed snake skin I’ve never seen the remains of the large animals that are in there. I understand that predators and scavengers pick the bones clean, but what happens to the bones themselves? (One of those “this sounds stupid”, but as Lizzie Borden once said to Carrie Nation, “it never hurts to ax”.) ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-dead-wolves-deer-rabbits-etc/419541/2 "2007-09-17T22:27:13Z")
I’ve thought about this myself. I spent a significant bit of my childhood running around in a forest populated by deer, moose and the occasional boar. Only once did I see any remains: an entire roe deer skeleton. This discovery made me wonder even more about all the other remains, as whatever kept them out of sight hadn’t done it to this particular skeleton. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-dead-wolves-deer-rabbits-etc/419541/3 "2007-09-17T22:47:51Z")
When I owned a piece of land in the country, I often walked the whole thing (which was quite extensive) and often found dead animals, such as rabbits, a deer, and once a coyote (not a wolf, but sorta similar). Most of the time they were skins and skeletons, but the coyote no one or nothing had touched, and it was quite gone. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-dead-wolves-deer-rabbits-etc/419541/4 "2007-09-18T00:22:14Z")
Bigfoot makes soup out of them. ---
**Author:** ![iftheresaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@iftheresaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iftheresaway)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2007, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-dead-wolves-deer-rabbits-etc/419541/5 "2007-09-22T03:58:58Z")
On the other hand, I was driving in Virginia a year or two ago (Manassas/ Bull Run), and over a very short distance (~3-5 miles) I spotted _eight_ deer which had recently become roadkill, including one very, very horrible one which I actually thought was a pitbull or something sitting beside the road, until I was close enough to see that it was a deer which had nothing wrong with it other than the head being completely sheared off at the base of the neck. I very much wish that those carcasses had been missing by the time I drove down the road. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2007, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-dead-wolves-deer-rabbits-etc/419541/6 "2007-09-22T04:32:37Z")
Scavengers dispose of the soft tissue pretty quickly. Crows, buzzards, hawks, coyotes, feral and occasionally feral dogs, carrion beatles, flies and maggots work pretty quickly, even on large animals. Mice and ground squirrels, chipmunks and regular bushy tailed squirrels are hungry for calcium and work over all but the largest bones . Mice and chipmunks are the principal reason that the forest is not carpeted with discarded antlers–they eat them. In a fairly short time all that is left is heavy bones and hair and that is pretty well hidden by grass, weeds and leaf litter. There are photos of the battlefield at the Little Big Horn taken a year or so after the fight. The ground is littered with disjointed horse skeletons – the work of coyotes, wolves and crows. Apparently there were not enough ground squirrels to clean up that mass of bones in the time allotted… ---
**Author:** ![beerslayer1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@beerslayer1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beerslayer1)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-about-dead-wolves-deer-rabbits-etc/419541/7 "2007-09-28T18:55:40Z")
Animals that are sick (most likely to die, old age or injured) will hide themselves from preditors because they know they can’t defend themselves if confronted. Therefore they are hiden from the casual hiker. and yes mice eat the crap out of bones and antlers, they are almost pure calcium (good for there bones).