What remains

Before having a tete-a-tete with a giant road grader - after driving over it's pristine work on a virginal graveled/sanded rural side road, I came across these remains. I had just set off from a Y junction where I had pondered which way to go on my inadequate yet functional analog map (GPS would seriously be my friend in these situations) and decided on going right.

Twenty or so meters down the road, I spotted in a ditch what was left of a deer carcass. Half the rib cage and the neck. Picked clean. No head to be seen. I snapped a couple of photos of it, then realized a few meters away in the grass there was a front leg (if that's a shoulder blade). Also picked clean down to the knee.

Looking at it, I am not sure if this was a hunting kill or road kill. Everything else was taken - but that doesn't make sense really. Not likely anyone would take it apart there. And there are no apex predators around here that could polish off a deer. The remaining skin and fur on the leg has a defined cut edge to it. Not chewed. Maybe ripped if not cut? There was no smell at all - not much left to smell really. And no blood on the ground either. I looked around and couldn't find much more. Might have been just dumped there.

Growing up in a big city, I never came across this sort of thing. I never went hunting and never would. Perhaps had the head still been there, it might have been worse and more upsetting. As it was, it was both gross and fascinating seeing the paw - for all intensive purposes looking as if still alive, beside what was a very much a dead animal.

Mike