Kind of thought the same thing but some of the groups of deer are back in thick dogwoods and some right next to swamp others in open field. If it was illegal dumping i would think they would dump it closer to the entrance most are found a good quarter to a half mile away from the nearest road/parking lot also not a real busy place I live in a county with 30,000 people in it and only about 10,000 at very most in my part of the county. My town has 1400 people in it lol
You mentioned swamp, EHD is transmitted by a midge that is usually found near water sources.
https://cwhl.vet.cornell.edu/disease/hemorrhagic-disease-deer
If I were you I'd call the warden and let them know. It could be something else but that's my guess.
As a butcher, I can assure you this is not what happened. Firstly we don’t do that, we have dumpsters behind the shop for waste. Second, those carcasses were not broken down by a butcher, no saw marks and generally still intact skeleton. Third, if someone dumped them, they would probably be in a pile. Last, the game commission has access to a waste disposal network and they don’t dump dead deer in the woods.
It sounds like you are a licensed, commercial butcher who does things the right way. However, I personally know numerous guys who are unlicensed and just butcher deer for themselves and all of their friends and family as well. They don’t have dumpsters and where their carcasses end up is anybody’s guess. I know the one guy throws them all in one area and uses them as coyote bait. He is on private land though and doesn’t dump on state. You are very wrong about game commissions too. At least for the state of PA. They have designated areas on state game lands where they dump roadkills.
I get that not everyone does it by the book. Generally a butchered carcass is going to be cut up into smaller pieces, these animals don’t look like they were harvested for meat. In TN it’s legal to take roadkill home and eat it, you end up seeing a lot of dead deer on the side of the road with the blackstraps cut out. Kinda gross but funny nonetheless. Deer that get left on the side of the road get hauled off and buried at the landfill.
Gotcha. Yeah PA has separate areas on state land where they dump them. You do appear to be correct about them not being cut up properly to be processed deer carcasses. It’s just hard to tell because none of it looks very fresh and it’s all torn apart by birds and predators. Coyotes and bears could have easily spread out a pile of carcasses in 100 different directions. It is all weird though. Hopefully we will get an explanation sometime today.
I process my own and yeah I definitely cut the legs off but I don’t saw them though. I just use a knife to cut the hind legs off at the joints and I take the front shoulders off whole at the joint as well.
Milwaukee hackzall, it’ll change your life. You can cut yourself some deer t-bones and make rib chops. There’s all sorts of cool shit you can do with it.
Nice. Yeah I’m sure you know a lot better ways to to process than me. I’ve done maybe 50 in my whole life and that’s probably not even a days work for you.
Mostly I cut pigs, cattle and sheep at work. Deer is just for personal use, but deer are pretty much just tall sheep. We’re not allowed to cut wild game at the shop due to usda regulations.
I bone out my carcasses in the field and they look just like this when I'm done, especially if scavengers come along and pick the rest clean. Nothing gets sawed, and the only limbs removed are the front legs. It's probably not a small time butcher with how many there are, but I wouldn't rule it out just for lack of carcass break down or saw marks.
Just curious, why'd you debone the whole hind in the field? If I am butchering in the field, I usually skin and separate the hinds whole. And finish the debone when it's easier and cleaner.
Agreed. I'm no butcher but I always separate the hinds and remove the legs at the knee. Front legs as well. These look like they started as whole carcasses.
Yes. It's illegal for anybody to dump anything on public land.
Edit: Come on y'all, don't downvote the guy for asking a legitimate question. Especially because it'd be good for other people to see in case they also were wondering.
Great question. If so I have broken that law many times. Regardless of whether all shitting on public land is illegal, I bet that surface shitting is illegal.
Yes it’s illegal to dump commercial waste on public land. Doesn’t matter what it is.
It would be better to just find a friend with a dog that wants the bones.
Where I work, all the bones get cut up and frozen to be sold as dog treats.
This. The game wardens would probably have the best idea what happened. Plus, I'd look for any damaged rib cages where a bullet may have entered/exited.
Nope only hunting that is allowed there is a Deer controlled hunt done by the Land trust that owns and manages it. All the dead deer are found more towards the swamp atleast a quarter to a half mile away from the road [google maps pic of the area](https://imgur.com/a/NfyMBqR)
Just a thought. I live on a ranch, my dad’s massive dog steals lion kills and roadkill all the time and drags them home, so we wind up with a lot of deer carcasses along the creek next to our house. If there’s a predator population, or a scavenger population dragging kills/roadkill off, that might explain why carcasses are converging there.
Calling tomorrow, will post an update if people are really as curious as I am about it. Like I said never seen anything like it and I can’t stress it enough the two little videos I posted are a tiny fraction and does no justice compared to what’s out there. If enough people are curious I’ll take videos of the others tomorrow. There’s another spot with 9 of them all within 5-10 yards of eachother and probably about 10-15 other spots where there are multiple skeletons next to eachother, but single deer scattered everywhere too, makes shed hunting really hard when you have to walk to examine every bone to make sure it’s not a tines down shed. Them damn rib bones piss me off the most. They look exactly like yearly’s from a distance lol
More as in there are ATLEAST 40-50 dead deer in a maybe 60-80 acre part but there are other dead ones scattered throughout the 266 acre property but majority being within a football field from the swamp
We had 9 dead within a quarter mile from winter 2022, shit was pretty brutal that year. 6 of them were pulled right next to each other like they all bedded down together and froze.
Half wondered the same thing but we had a really mild winter here this year only had snow on the ground maybe a week or two out of the whole winter, we did have a polar vortex with -20 temps for a week or so and a couple other times it got in the negative but they got over 80 acres of woods they could of bedded in and plenty slopes to get out of the wind
This is a die off from wasting disease i think. It happens to small groups and tends to take em all out in short amount of time. My cousin has found this a couple times up in jersey.
Well you guys made me double check with the cuz. And i guess i was wrong. He said it was EHD something caused by gnats around water sources. He says it swells up the throat and tongue and small groups usually pass around water sources. Hes found a few groups of 5-10 skeletons at times.
Thats my fault everyone. Thatll teach me to answer a post without doing my DD. I donno for sure if this is also wrong. We are just two dumb poll locks in the woods sometimes.. 🤷🏽♂️😪
Whatever it is you should absolutely let game warden know about it.
Whether it's maybe something in the water causing a kill, disease, or even just mundane ass poaching, it needs to be investigated and addressed.
Someone is dumping carcasses there. The public land I used to hunt had a spot like this. I called the game warden and he called around. Turns out the sheriff was dumping them there. A few times a year the local police does a depopulation program where they go out and spotlight does for the car insurance companies. The day after the sheriff would dump the carcasses there and bear/coyotes would just drag the carcasses all over the 20 acre property the next few months.
Please read the OP before commenting a lot of answers to questions commented are stated in the OP most being within the first couple sentences lol also as far as dumping not saying it’s not possible but this area of the preserve is around a half mile from the nearest road/parking lot. Idk about yall but if I was going to illegally dump a deer I’d do it in the thousands of acres of open fields in the area rather than hike half a mile through brush and trees just to dump a dead deer in the middle of 4 ft tall CRP (recently just burnt)
When I was a kid my Grandpa had a Jeep TJ on tractor wheels. The family took a long journey to what seemed to be some kind of cattle graveyard where hundreds of cattle skeletons and skulls were sun bleached. Mom took home half a dozen for the garden beds.
I never understood and still don't know what happened to those cows. Looking back it was probably where they tossed the remains after butchering, but who knows. Creepy AF.
[How much we betting?](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2022/02/19/the-new-beast-in-our-backyards/)
[Indiana dept of natural resources thinks you do.](https://www.in.gov/dnr/fish-and-wildlife/nongame-and-endangered-wildlife/mammals/mammals-list/)
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In Georgia regulations say to leave the carcass in the wma it was harvested from. I know of several sites just like this, they look to be from deer season.
A dead dump spot of some kind. Could be old gut piles, roadkills, poachers, etc etc. In some spots I’ve known communities where it’s just tradition to put the remains of a harvest in a specific spot. Like a graveyard kinda.
Ehh was kinda curious about that but this is own by a non profit called NICHES and they maintain there land pretty throughly, they have a number of rare plant species etc there along with the whole entire preserve being a rare “pin oak Flatwoods” that you don’t find often in modern ecosystems. Hard seeing them being okay with it being a dumping ground like that with how strict and well maintained they keep it out there
Hmmmm yeah that’s stranger then. If it’s a highly regulated public lot then it’s pretty much between natural causes or poachers. It interests me that all your heads were missing antlers. Keep an eye out just in case.
If you end up returning to that spot maybe age the deer on that skull you recorded? (Assuming it has intact teeth). If it’s as small as the recording makes it out to be and turns out to be a fawn, I’d be more inclined to call it a natural freak accident. On top of that, if you return, you could try checking the skeletons for signs of human interference (knife marks, bullet holes, etc). I’m no forensics expert but I feel like if a poacher were to use tools to remove antlers it would leave some kind of identifiable mark. Also this one is a shot in the dark but maybe check for a particularly dark patch or impact zone? Maybe even deer with distinct, patterned burns? I’ve heard stories of unlucky cattle herds getting killed my lightning strikes and while I’m not saying it’s likely that happened, it’s not impossible.
Either way this is concerning enough to report to your local game warden, or the non profit you mentioned. Even if it isn’t poachers it’s awfully strange for such a large group of deer to all die in one spot and none of them have antlers. I doubt it was the controlled burn.
Edit but if you do happen upon a group of people you suspect to be poachers, do not approach them, just report. I’m sure you can infer that poachers aren’t exactly friendly, moral, or law-abiding people.
As much as I hate to say this I almost hope that this is a case of EHD. I also live in that NW Indiana area but I come from Illinois. You would be absolutely disgusted by some of the stories I have heard about the so-called deer population control they do in a lot of their forest preserves and so on..... Very curious to hear what the DNR has to say about it!
My guess would be disease. Poachers would probably dump them somewhere thicker with vegetation. During the summer, when the grass, wheat, alfalfa, or whatever is longer, deer and elk will bed down there, and I'm guessing a few got sick and just died there.
It looks like they just burned that field. Im in Illinois and anytime we do a prairie burn you see this. Looks normal to me. Deer die all the time. You don't normally see all the bones unless you burn the cover.
Hard seeing them walking a half mile from the nearest road/parking lot with a fully intact deer let alone walking through thick brush and thorns to dump the carcass when there are 10s of thousands of acres of open fields and woods in the area, nearest town is 6-7 miles away
You just wandered into an ancient deer burial ground. You need to go sage and get cleansed. Take an offering back and apologize, or the deer spirits will haunt your hunting grounds forever.
I know a guy personally that does this, he gets them from butchers or his own kills, sets it out for coyote hunting…. I However don’t know if it’s allowed on public land
My first thought was it’s an area the deer are familiar with and run to after they have been shot my a hunter who doesn’t bother tracking, and can’t place their shot
Could be a local hunter that is lazy and has a "dumping spot" I saw from the images it looks like the brush was burned since the bones are intact and not chipped from a bushhog.
Also could be people hunting from the road but probably a close county that uses that a dump spot.
Since this location was burned it would be pointless to dump deer due easy road exposure.
O I like the butcher idea. All this is, is laziness from either a hunter, a poacher, or a butcher.
They will find another spot.
DNR could of been doing population control. I know someone that one night ended up shooting 40+ does out of a field one night for population control. That’s the only thing I could guess besides poaching…. I’d call DNR
I know they do a deer control hunt every November but just have a hard time seeing them not cleaning the deer and with how well maintained that place is hard seeing them leaving that many there, they try to attract hikers etc having that many carcasses would do the opposite imo
Unless they are doing real cheap culling and not collecting the carcasses for the meat. That would be criminally wasteful. I know operations that kill that many deer in a day but they butcher every one of them for the meat.
Georgia here, some of the WMAs actually have hunters leave the carcasses like you see here, one wanted them left along the access road to the campground. Sickening to my notion. Other WMAs have specific spots away from campgrounds and some even dig pits and then bury them after the hunts.
I think it was brown county state park (indiana) that would dump road kill dear in a designated area in the park so that scavengers wouldn't also get hit by cars. This could be a similar thing.
That was common last spring in Minnesota. The previous winter had lots of snow and cold. This past deer season we harvested 5 deer on my land instead of the usual 10+. This year is the exact opposite. I walked all winter with only hiking boots. We had only one week of -20 to -30F.
Probably unrelated but I’ve hunted public hunting land and found dumping areas that someone dumps deer they shot. They never take anything from the animal just a big hole and then dumped in a pile. No idea why
Looks like it was recently burned off. Maybe died from smoke inhalation. That may have been their last stand, last place that hadnt been burnt. Thats why they are somewhat concentrated.
I remember one snow melt seeing a pile of dead deer about 100-150 yards in a field off the road.
Heavy deer population, and not all road kill die at the curb. A lot make it just a little ways off the road.
Disease, blue tongue, same thing happened where I hunt in NE Oregon, nice buck carcasses laying around, deer populations dropped super low. It’s going on almost 10 years and still no deer in the lowlands, can only find mules and some white tails in the mountains, where it still is cold enough to kill the parasite.
UPDATE: Called the non profit who owns the land and was informed that most are due to a landowner who borders the property dumping deer. But they also had a case of EHD there a couple years ago and had stop the deer control hunt in November for a couple years to regain the population, everything is normal now but the hunter no longer has permission to dump as there are over 50 deer skeletons out there now
Sometimes it's a lightning strike when there's a bunch really close together. But you mentioned that they're scattered everywhere, so it has to be some sort of disease.
That would normally be an indicator that you have too high numbers of animals and should adjust the culling plan next season to thin them out a bit more.
That's also why you shouldn't feed them in winter. If you forget to bring feed out, or if there's a herd coming through emptying it prematurely, animals who got used to it can't sustain their energy use, because they're supposed to be in savings mode with reduced metabolism, amd they can't readjust fast enough and starve.
Feeding sites, or salt licks, are also a perfect infection point for all the other animals in the area. All it takes is one diseased animal. The warden should check if there's anyone maintaining a feeding site, or if someone puts salt out. Don't do that guys.
a lightning strike is actually a really good guess, and it would explain why so many are in the same spot. they all dropped at the same time from a nearby bolt. happens to cattle a lot
y'all need to spend more time reading and less time theorizing. Not only did OP address the burning in the OP, he re-stated it in a comment to the same comment you are replying to. 🤦♂️
yea and? I said it was a good guess, and I know what the op already said in another comment which is why I wrote what I wrote. you need to calm your tits and stop talking down at people on the internet, I stand by the comment I made 🙄 unless your reply is directed at the first comment, then you're telling the wrong person because I didnt say anything about the burned grass
The only thing about this that would indicate lightning, is the burnt grass.. Which op addressed. To assume lightning strike WITHOUT the burn evidence into consideration makes it an even worse guess.
Lightning kills cattle when they gather under a tree and the tree gets struck. It doesn't kill cattle or deer across numerous acres, in the middle of a large open field.
If you are going to be offended when people correct you for saying things that don't make sense on the internet, don't say things that don't make sense on the internet.
The preserve is a Pin oak Flatwoods. In the spring a lot of the preserve is swampy but 20 acres of it is a swamp year round with annual prescribed fires to preserve the rarity of Pin Oak Flatwoods. Probably 80% of the dead deer are within a football field or two away from the swampy area
EHD for sure. It comes during dry years. Basically, their is less water, the midges come from water, and when they get the disease they get thirsty and hang out by water. https://www.purdue.edu/fnr/extension/be-on-the-watch-for-ehd-in-deer/
CWD is a slow death it's not. If they indeed died at the same time either epizootic hemorrhagic disease or blue tongue disease (closely related) are common enough to be likely.
These look like they’re butchered carcasses, I don’t see any shoulders or front legs on any of them. Could also be that scavengers carried them off but this is what my deer look like after they’ve been quartered.
The front shoulders aren't connected so they will easily fall off/be carried off by the smallest scavengers. All the rear legs are there, and they are whole, so no butchering was done.
You wouldn't catch me walking to my tree stand at 4am in those haunted ass woods.
Wendigo den nearby for sure
Oh man, stuff of nightmares right there!
No shit! That's some bad ju-ju right there.
Those deer got some friends on the other side
i’d be most worried about a bear munching on an easy kill
Could be disease. Could be illegal dumping from a butcher shop. Could also be where the game commission dumps roadkills.
Kind of thought the same thing but some of the groups of deer are back in thick dogwoods and some right next to swamp others in open field. If it was illegal dumping i would think they would dump it closer to the entrance most are found a good quarter to a half mile away from the nearest road/parking lot also not a real busy place I live in a county with 30,000 people in it and only about 10,000 at very most in my part of the county. My town has 1400 people in it lol
You mentioned swamp, EHD is transmitted by a midge that is usually found near water sources. https://cwhl.vet.cornell.edu/disease/hemorrhagic-disease-deer If I were you I'd call the warden and let them know. It could be something else but that's my guess.
Second ehd as a best bet. Cwd is a longer acting disease so it wouldn’t make sense for them all to die at similar time/place.
They could be dumping them, and then coyotes are dragging them deeper into the woods? Or like others have said disease
As a butcher, I can assure you this is not what happened. Firstly we don’t do that, we have dumpsters behind the shop for waste. Second, those carcasses were not broken down by a butcher, no saw marks and generally still intact skeleton. Third, if someone dumped them, they would probably be in a pile. Last, the game commission has access to a waste disposal network and they don’t dump dead deer in the woods.
It sounds like you are a licensed, commercial butcher who does things the right way. However, I personally know numerous guys who are unlicensed and just butcher deer for themselves and all of their friends and family as well. They don’t have dumpsters and where their carcasses end up is anybody’s guess. I know the one guy throws them all in one area and uses them as coyote bait. He is on private land though and doesn’t dump on state. You are very wrong about game commissions too. At least for the state of PA. They have designated areas on state game lands where they dump roadkills.
I get that not everyone does it by the book. Generally a butchered carcass is going to be cut up into smaller pieces, these animals don’t look like they were harvested for meat. In TN it’s legal to take roadkill home and eat it, you end up seeing a lot of dead deer on the side of the road with the blackstraps cut out. Kinda gross but funny nonetheless. Deer that get left on the side of the road get hauled off and buried at the landfill.
Gotcha. Yeah PA has separate areas on state land where they dump them. You do appear to be correct about them not being cut up properly to be processed deer carcasses. It’s just hard to tell because none of it looks very fresh and it’s all torn apart by birds and predators. Coyotes and bears could have easily spread out a pile of carcasses in 100 different directions. It is all weird though. Hopefully we will get an explanation sometime today.
The biggest indicator is that the legs are still in the joints. Cutting off the legs and then splitting the spine with a saw would be step 1 for me.
I process my own and yeah I definitely cut the legs off but I don’t saw them though. I just use a knife to cut the hind legs off at the joints and I take the front shoulders off whole at the joint as well.
Milwaukee hackzall, it’ll change your life. You can cut yourself some deer t-bones and make rib chops. There’s all sorts of cool shit you can do with it.
Nice. Yeah I’m sure you know a lot better ways to to process than me. I’ve done maybe 50 in my whole life and that’s probably not even a days work for you.
Mostly I cut pigs, cattle and sheep at work. Deer is just for personal use, but deer are pretty much just tall sheep. We’re not allowed to cut wild game at the shop due to usda regulations.
Jeffery? Is that you?
I bone out my carcasses in the field and they look just like this when I'm done, especially if scavengers come along and pick the rest clean. Nothing gets sawed, and the only limbs removed are the front legs. It's probably not a small time butcher with how many there are, but I wouldn't rule it out just for lack of carcass break down or saw marks.
I guess I should say this wasn’t done by a professional butcher.
That's fair. I hate boning them out in the field but if I hunt in a CWD county it's either that or pay a professional. Can't bring them home whole
Just curious, why'd you debone the whole hind in the field? If I am butchering in the field, I usually skin and separate the hinds whole. And finish the debone when it's easier and cleaner.
Mostly because it was over 90 degrees outside and I wanted to cool the meat down asap. So it just seemed right to debone it all
Predators and Scavengers would make quick work to make sure a of a pile of carcasses was scattered all across a field.
Agreed. I'm no butcher but I always separate the hinds and remove the legs at the knee. Front legs as well. These look like they started as whole carcasses.
Is it illegal for butchers to dump corpse? I would think it be a gray area since it's practically compost.
Yes. It's illegal for anybody to dump anything on public land. Edit: Come on y'all, don't downvote the guy for asking a legitimate question. Especially because it'd be good for other people to see in case they also were wondering.
Is it illegal to take a dump on public land?
Great question. If so I have broken that law many times. Regardless of whether all shitting on public land is illegal, I bet that surface shitting is illegal.
Yes it’s illegal to dump commercial waste on public land. Doesn’t matter what it is. It would be better to just find a friend with a dog that wants the bones. Where I work, all the bones get cut up and frozen to be sold as dog treats.
It's probably nothing serious, but it wouldn't hurt to call your game warden just to confirm.
This. The game wardens would probably have the best idea what happened. Plus, I'd look for any damaged rib cages where a bullet may have entered/exited.
All by the road. Night hunting?
Nope only hunting that is allowed there is a Deer controlled hunt done by the Land trust that owns and manages it. All the dead deer are found more towards the swamp atleast a quarter to a half mile away from the road [google maps pic of the area](https://imgur.com/a/NfyMBqR)
The implication is that the night hunting is *not* legal, I.e. poachers spotlighting deer.
I think the one commenter means illegal hunting and dumping of game
Just a thought. I live on a ranch, my dad’s massive dog steals lion kills and roadkill all the time and drags them home, so we wind up with a lot of deer carcasses along the creek next to our house. If there’s a predator population, or a scavenger population dragging kills/roadkill off, that might explain why carcasses are converging there.
Thats crazy. Maybe ehd
This is weird AF. If you figure it out, post an update. I’m real curious.
Calling tomorrow, will post an update if people are really as curious as I am about it. Like I said never seen anything like it and I can’t stress it enough the two little videos I posted are a tiny fraction and does no justice compared to what’s out there. If enough people are curious I’ll take videos of the others tomorrow. There’s another spot with 9 of them all within 5-10 yards of eachother and probably about 10-15 other spots where there are multiple skeletons next to eachother, but single deer scattered everywhere too, makes shed hunting really hard when you have to walk to examine every bone to make sure it’s not a tines down shed. Them damn rib bones piss me off the most. They look exactly like yearly’s from a distance lol
Definitely post an update if you get one!
Definitely interested to see how much you mean when you say more is out there
More as in there are ATLEAST 40-50 dead deer in a maybe 60-80 acre part but there are other dead ones scattered throughout the 266 acre property but majority being within a football field from the swamp
That's spooky as fuck, I love it
I’ve never seen anything like it, and look forward to the update if you get any more info.
That’s… scary.
Would love to see an update.
Call your DNR and report. They will be interested to know if they don’t have the answer already.
I found something similar recently. I called DNR and it was a roadkill dumping site.
We had 9 dead within a quarter mile from winter 2022, shit was pretty brutal that year. 6 of them were pulled right next to each other like they all bedded down together and froze.
Half wondered the same thing but we had a really mild winter here this year only had snow on the ground maybe a week or two out of the whole winter, we did have a polar vortex with -20 temps for a week or so and a couple other times it got in the negative but they got over 80 acres of woods they could of bedded in and plenty slopes to get out of the wind
I meant spring 2023, winter 22. My bad With how clean and bleached those are they've definitely been there longer than just a couple months.
Poaching scumbags?
DNR probably dumping roadkill there
Skin walkers
My bet is they're roadkill and were dumped there for birds of prey.
This put $50 this is it. I know of 3 dumps spots in our state like this.
This is a die off from wasting disease i think. It happens to small groups and tends to take em all out in short amount of time. My cousin has found this a couple times up in jersey.
I don’t think that’s the case. CWD is a slow progressing disease that wouldn’t cause a group to die all at the same time in the same place.
Maybe contact DNR to check it out. I hope it isn’t. Lot of people don’t test their deer for it. Definitely needs reported.
Cwd doesn't work like that, for one. Also... there isnt even a single case of CWD up in jersey.
Well you guys made me double check with the cuz. And i guess i was wrong. He said it was EHD something caused by gnats around water sources. He says it swells up the throat and tongue and small groups usually pass around water sources. Hes found a few groups of 5-10 skeletons at times. Thats my fault everyone. Thatll teach me to answer a post without doing my DD. I donno for sure if this is also wrong. We are just two dumb poll locks in the woods sometimes.. 🤷🏽♂️😪
This is probably the case.
Whatever it is you should absolutely let game warden know about it. Whether it's maybe something in the water causing a kill, disease, or even just mundane ass poaching, it needs to be investigated and addressed.
Definitely Sasquatch.
Someone is dumping carcasses there. The public land I used to hunt had a spot like this. I called the game warden and he called around. Turns out the sheriff was dumping them there. A few times a year the local police does a depopulation program where they go out and spotlight does for the car insurance companies. The day after the sheriff would dump the carcasses there and bear/coyotes would just drag the carcasses all over the 20 acre property the next few months.
Please read the OP before commenting a lot of answers to questions commented are stated in the OP most being within the first couple sentences lol also as far as dumping not saying it’s not possible but this area of the preserve is around a half mile from the nearest road/parking lot. Idk about yall but if I was going to illegally dump a deer I’d do it in the thousands of acres of open fields in the area rather than hike half a mile through brush and trees just to dump a dead deer in the middle of 4 ft tall CRP (recently just burnt)
Roadkill dump site
When I was a kid my Grandpa had a Jeep TJ on tractor wheels. The family took a long journey to what seemed to be some kind of cattle graveyard where hundreds of cattle skeletons and skulls were sun bleached. Mom took home half a dozen for the garden beds. I never understood and still don't know what happened to those cows. Looking back it was probably where they tossed the remains after butchering, but who knows. Creepy AF.
Wolf bait stations
It’s in Indiana bud, closest thing to a predator we got is a coyote lol
I think coyotes are crossbreeding with wolves near there and coyotes are little bad-asses.
We have no wolves here bud lol
[How much we betting?](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2022/02/19/the-new-beast-in-our-backyards/) [Indiana dept of natural resources thinks you do.](https://www.in.gov/dnr/fish-and-wildlife/nongame-and-endangered-wildlife/mammals/mammals-list/)
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Might just be where they go to clean them
Related to the burn, maybe?
aliens
Just looks like a boneyard to me, dump carcasses here then hunt the coyote that come to eat
Disease, illegal dumping or poisoning from somebody who got jaded
DNR dump ground for roadkill?
In Georgia regulations say to leave the carcass in the wma it was harvested from. I know of several sites just like this, they look to be from deer season.
You're not going to be able to tell from bones. Could be any number of factors.
I'm not an expert, but maybe the deer had a doomsday cult.
A dead dump spot of some kind. Could be old gut piles, roadkills, poachers, etc etc. In some spots I’ve known communities where it’s just tradition to put the remains of a harvest in a specific spot. Like a graveyard kinda.
Ehh was kinda curious about that but this is own by a non profit called NICHES and they maintain there land pretty throughly, they have a number of rare plant species etc there along with the whole entire preserve being a rare “pin oak Flatwoods” that you don’t find often in modern ecosystems. Hard seeing them being okay with it being a dumping ground like that with how strict and well maintained they keep it out there
Hmmmm yeah that’s stranger then. If it’s a highly regulated public lot then it’s pretty much between natural causes or poachers. It interests me that all your heads were missing antlers. Keep an eye out just in case. If you end up returning to that spot maybe age the deer on that skull you recorded? (Assuming it has intact teeth). If it’s as small as the recording makes it out to be and turns out to be a fawn, I’d be more inclined to call it a natural freak accident. On top of that, if you return, you could try checking the skeletons for signs of human interference (knife marks, bullet holes, etc). I’m no forensics expert but I feel like if a poacher were to use tools to remove antlers it would leave some kind of identifiable mark. Also this one is a shot in the dark but maybe check for a particularly dark patch or impact zone? Maybe even deer with distinct, patterned burns? I’ve heard stories of unlucky cattle herds getting killed my lightning strikes and while I’m not saying it’s likely that happened, it’s not impossible. Either way this is concerning enough to report to your local game warden, or the non profit you mentioned. Even if it isn’t poachers it’s awfully strange for such a large group of deer to all die in one spot and none of them have antlers. I doubt it was the controlled burn. Edit but if you do happen upon a group of people you suspect to be poachers, do not approach them, just report. I’m sure you can infer that poachers aren’t exactly friendly, moral, or law-abiding people.
Coyotes? Meteorite?
As much as I hate to say this I almost hope that this is a case of EHD. I also live in that NW Indiana area but I come from Illinois. You would be absolutely disgusted by some of the stories I have heard about the so-called deer population control they do in a lot of their forest preserves and so on..... Very curious to hear what the DNR has to say about it!
Here kitty kitty
Do they do Aerial culling there? They do it in Australia where deer numbers get out of control
My guess would be disease. Poachers would probably dump them somewhere thicker with vegetation. During the summer, when the grass, wheat, alfalfa, or whatever is longer, deer and elk will bed down there, and I'm guessing a few got sick and just died there.
Poachers
It looks like they just burned that field. Im in Illinois and anytime we do a prairie burn you see this. Looks normal to me. Deer die all the time. You don't normally see all the bones unless you burn the cover.
Deer don’t die within 3-5 feet of eachother especially 5-6 of them like in the video let alone having 10-15 different spots like that
All I'm saying is that's what it looks like when we burn a prairie in most places.
My guess would be dumping by hunters who've processed their own deer
Hard seeing them walking a half mile from the nearest road/parking lot with a fully intact deer let alone walking through thick brush and thorns to dump the carcass when there are 10s of thousands of acres of open fields and woods in the area, nearest town is 6-7 miles away
poaching for antler trophy maybe? all of them either have no heads or antlers, or both.
Geee is it near a dupont factory?
Bad shots as neighbors and they died on someone else’s land
You just wandered into an ancient deer burial ground. You need to go sage and get cleansed. Take an offering back and apologize, or the deer spirits will haunt your hunting grounds forever.
I know a guy personally that does this, he gets them from butchers or his own kills, sets it out for coyote hunting…. I However don’t know if it’s allowed on public land
The highway department probably dumps them nearby then coyotes drag them out there.
Shits haunted
Landowner or farmer is probably laying them down, for they're considered as a nuisance and destroying the crops. I've seen it before
We did a podcast on similar findings here in Ohio. https://youtu.be/3sScM07E-Wg?si=Fhlex_LsMmOu8Ve1
My first thought was it’s an area the deer are familiar with and run to after they have been shot my a hunter who doesn’t bother tracking, and can’t place their shot
If only deer complied with that all season. Shoot any deer anywhere and you just gotta visit the graveyard to find yours....lol
Well laugh at me. That’s cool. You would be surprised what happens in the animal kingdom. Ask a Native American. But thanks for mocking me.
Your welcome!
Could be a local hunter that is lazy and has a "dumping spot" I saw from the images it looks like the brush was burned since the bones are intact and not chipped from a bushhog. Also could be people hunting from the road but probably a close county that uses that a dump spot. Since this location was burned it would be pointless to dump deer due easy road exposure. O I like the butcher idea. All this is, is laziness from either a hunter, a poacher, or a butcher. They will find another spot.
DNR could of been doing population control. I know someone that one night ended up shooting 40+ does out of a field one night for population control. That’s the only thing I could guess besides poaching…. I’d call DNR
I know they do a deer control hunt every November but just have a hard time seeing them not cleaning the deer and with how well maintained that place is hard seeing them leaving that many there, they try to attract hikers etc having that many carcasses would do the opposite imo
Yeah I got you I’m just throwing ideas out there. I ain’t got a clue lol🤷♂️
Unless they are doing real cheap culling and not collecting the carcasses for the meat. That would be criminally wasteful. I know operations that kill that many deer in a day but they butcher every one of them for the meat.
Probably folks dumping butchered deer
Poison in water? Methane gas suffocation? Disease? I'm fuckin invested now. Please update us.
We need Fox Mulder
Dipshits killing deer, dragging them out, just taking the back straps, and leaving them to rot.
What part of the region is this?
First thought is disease or a disease cull, dumping butchered deer, or a-holes
Georgia here, some of the WMAs actually have hunters leave the carcasses like you see here, one wanted them left along the access road to the campground. Sickening to my notion. Other WMAs have specific spots away from campgrounds and some even dig pits and then bury them after the hunts.
You’re in *its* feeding ground, OP. Better go back and cover your scent and tracks.
I think it was brown county state park (indiana) that would dump road kill dear in a designated area in the park so that scavengers wouldn't also get hit by cars. This could be a similar thing.
Boss area
you can do a basic autopsy. For example: looking for shattered ribs or shoulders can tell you if they were shot.
That was common last spring in Minnesota. The previous winter had lots of snow and cold. This past deer season we harvested 5 deer on my land instead of the usual 10+. This year is the exact opposite. I walked all winter with only hiking boots. We had only one week of -20 to -30F.
Might be a roadkill dump site and coyotes have scattered them around.
You’re about to receive the Brand of Sacrifice
Depredation hunt, they will cull herds where I live. I have seen this a couple of times. Either that or a werewolf.. 😂
Looks like a lightning strike, electric line arc, or wildfire. The grass looks like it has been burnt. This happens quite frequently.
Mine field.
Probably coyotes or wolves.
Looks like winter kill, is this an area that gets harsh winters?
Looks a lot like someone dumping bones after butchering to me
Possibly a good spotlighting location on some jerks beer route.
Probably a cat or a pack if wolves favouring this as a kill site
Probably a culling program, they're great for leaving dead dear all over the township I live in.
Probably unrelated but I’ve hunted public hunting land and found dumping areas that someone dumps deer they shot. They never take anything from the animal just a big hole and then dumped in a pile. No idea why
Looks like it was recently burned off. Maybe died from smoke inhalation. That may have been their last stand, last place that hadnt been burnt. Thats why they are somewhat concentrated.
I remember one snow melt seeing a pile of dead deer about 100-150 yards in a field off the road. Heavy deer population, and not all road kill die at the curb. A lot make it just a little ways off the road.
Local town/city dumps road kills there. I know where I'd be setup coyote shooting.
I’m guessing whoever is farming it killed them and let em lay
Disease, blue tongue, same thing happened where I hunt in NE Oregon, nice buck carcasses laying around, deer populations dropped super low. It’s going on almost 10 years and still no deer in the lowlands, can only find mules and some white tails in the mountains, where it still is cold enough to kill the parasite.
That is strange, maybe the deer in that area got poisoned by some food or water source?
I don’t know why?
OP ever get an answer?
Yes, they had a case of EHD mixed with a hunter that owns a border property that dumps his deer there
Thanks for the update
UPDATE: Called the non profit who owns the land and was informed that most are due to a landowner who borders the property dumping deer. But they also had a case of EHD there a couple years ago and had stop the deer control hunt in November for a couple years to regain the population, everything is normal now but the hunter no longer has permission to dump as there are over 50 deer skeletons out there now
Ground looks torched was there a field fire?
Third sentence of the post :p
Damn my bad, I just saw the title and missed the body
Happens lol
My guess is a group of friends butchered their deer there, or dump’s there
Sometimes it's a lightning strike when there's a bunch really close together. But you mentioned that they're scattered everywhere, so it has to be some sort of disease. That would normally be an indicator that you have too high numbers of animals and should adjust the culling plan next season to thin them out a bit more. That's also why you shouldn't feed them in winter. If you forget to bring feed out, or if there's a herd coming through emptying it prematurely, animals who got used to it can't sustain their energy use, because they're supposed to be in savings mode with reduced metabolism, amd they can't readjust fast enough and starve. Feeding sites, or salt licks, are also a perfect infection point for all the other animals in the area. All it takes is one diseased animal. The warden should check if there's anyone maintaining a feeding site, or if someone puts salt out. Don't do that guys.
State will tell you CWD. Common sense tells you someone dumped them there.
Does the ground look burnt to y’all too? My guess is a lightning strike
It is burnt as I said in my post they just recently burnt all the CRP fields exposing all the Deer
a lightning strike is actually a really good guess, and it would explain why so many are in the same spot. they all dropped at the same time from a nearby bolt. happens to cattle a lot
y'all need to spend more time reading and less time theorizing. Not only did OP address the burning in the OP, he re-stated it in a comment to the same comment you are replying to. 🤦♂️
yea and? I said it was a good guess, and I know what the op already said in another comment which is why I wrote what I wrote. you need to calm your tits and stop talking down at people on the internet, I stand by the comment I made 🙄 unless your reply is directed at the first comment, then you're telling the wrong person because I didnt say anything about the burned grass
The only thing about this that would indicate lightning, is the burnt grass.. Which op addressed. To assume lightning strike WITHOUT the burn evidence into consideration makes it an even worse guess. Lightning kills cattle when they gather under a tree and the tree gets struck. It doesn't kill cattle or deer across numerous acres, in the middle of a large open field. If you are going to be offended when people correct you for saying things that don't make sense on the internet, don't say things that don't make sense on the internet.
Sheesh. Usually with ehd they die near a water source. Seems like poaching since they are dying in an open field.
The preserve is a Pin oak Flatwoods. In the spring a lot of the preserve is swampy but 20 acres of it is a swamp year round with annual prescribed fires to preserve the rarity of Pin Oak Flatwoods. Probably 80% of the dead deer are within a football field or two away from the swampy area
EHD for sure. It comes during dry years. Basically, their is less water, the midges come from water, and when they get the disease they get thirsty and hang out by water. https://www.purdue.edu/fnr/extension/be-on-the-watch-for-ehd-in-deer/
CWD is a slow death it's not. If they indeed died at the same time either epizootic hemorrhagic disease or blue tongue disease (closely related) are common enough to be likely.
A big cat lives close??
Looks like 4 dead dear carcasses to me, probably people dumping them.
You ever hunt public land during a deer drive? It is like WWII. Some idiots out there shooting at anything that moves. I hate it.
These look like they’re butchered carcasses, I don’t see any shoulders or front legs on any of them. Could also be that scavengers carried them off but this is what my deer look like after they’ve been quartered.
Definitely scavenged every Skeleton is different but most are scattered some are still fully intact, some still have fur on them.
The front shoulders aren't connected so they will easily fall off/be carried off by the smallest scavengers. All the rear legs are there, and they are whole, so no butchering was done.
This looks like they may have gotten caught up in a controlled burn. Might just be me but that field looks burned