deer killed by fox not big cat at Woodchester

 

Well that was a shame,the results from the DNA tests on the Woodchester(Glos.)deer carcases have come back with the most likely candidate being a fox.Not a trace of big cat DNA was found.Hats off though to our Gloucestshire colleages for having the guts to make public their intentions before the tests were even started,in this way the public were involved in the whole process from start to finish so gaining an insight into the processes albeit the many cul-de-sacs and dead endes that this big cat game produces.We live,we learn, as they say whoever "they" are.If the deer kids were killed by a big cat then peoples involvement along the way would of made people feel part of it.Still,it just goes to show just how hard it is to produce evidence of big cats and how that needs to backed up by other signifiers and not just be taken on it,s own.To be fair that hole in the neck is typical of some canid strikes and what it does show that foxes are a very resourceful predator,i did find a picture on the net of a supposed leopard kill of an antelope in Africa which had a large gaping wound on the side of it,s neck but this was the exception,generally speaking big cats such as leopards kill by throttling and this is the only deer killing method by big cats,whatever species they are,that i have come across here in Sussex.I was quite surprised to hear that a fox could pull down and kill a 35lb roe kid in fact i couldn,t see it happening at all until i remembered about fully grown in-lamb ewes being pulled down by supposedly packs of foxes up in Scotland during the very hard winters of the early 1960,s,mind you the hill foxes up there are a bit bigger than our ones.The trail camera pics i posted last month show a fox catching a squirrel,a very nippy customer indeed and various foxes have been known to specialise and become very expert in various predatory techniques,last year i watched a vixen bolt rabbits from buries for her 4 cubs on the downs near Lewes, a walk there the next day saw the team at the same caper again.It seems quite clear that the Woodchester carcases were the work of a rogue fox specialising in targeting roe young,most likely progressing up from the very young kids to the hefty,for a fox,35lb ones,foxes are well known to be the principle predator of 1 to 2 month old roe.A huge fox was shot last year weighing 28lb, a record i believe,not particularly fat just a massive animal but i don,t suspect such an animal was responsible for the deer killings,we will probably never know but it was more than likely just a normal fox which has specialised in taking down deer....

Big cats have been in Sussex for many years but it,s only since the late 1980,s that they have been encountered with any degree of frequency to give the impression that they are an established presence.Numbers of big cats have only until recently been able to of been quantified however they don,t seem to of increased much if at all in the last 5odd years,in addition to this the estimated home range of any one of these big cats does appear to be in the region of 6oo sq.km and their territory size doesn,t seem to of been reduced.There must be several factors involved in this such as the ever reducing size of hunting habitat due to development,disturbance of cover by increased recreational use leading to less prey numbers and suitable ground for themselves.A succession of hard winters may also be a reason nor can disease spread by the feral domestic cat population be ruled out however i am sure that the principal factor hindering the increase in the big cat population is down to foxes.Foxes are very numerous in most parts and have loose territories that they patrol vigorously hunting and foraging for what they can find,they are in direct competition for the same resources as big cats ,discounting deer(Woodchester deer kills aside)and can roam all of their area several times a week,they have to to prevent repeateed incursions from other foxes.When they have exhausted one supply they are highly adaptable and can change over to something else and even revert to eating earthworms which account for a very large proportion of the diet.Big cats on the other hand literally move in on differing fox territory visiting only a handful of times a year at best and the rabbits they are after,the fowl they are stalking,the voles they are poking for, etc.etc. has already been severely got at by the local foxes in all likelihood and made wise in the process.There are times of feast of course when there is enough for everyone such as the baby rabbit boom in early spring but it,s the times of famine,the hungry gap of febuary/march that dictate eventual numbers of big cats and this is when they can switch over and target,catch and kill their number one competition,the red fox...

In the autumn of 2010 i had been seeing a young roe doe with her first kid and they had a habit of lying up in the daytime amongst tall grasses right out in the open field,one october afternoon i saw a fox,not that big either,hassling the kid trying to have a go at it and very nearly did only for the doe to rush along to it stamping and kicking it,s hooves out forward,straight away the fox gave up and moved on.The young roe kid was still around the next day or 2 but after that dissapeared from the does side until a month later in november,the day before bonfire night,i found a small roe carcase,presumably the kid i had seen before with fox scat by it in the small copse next to the favoured roe lying up field.Presuming the doe had birthed in late may or june it would make it only around 3 months old but still at least twice the size of a fox.Strangely enough if i hadn,t seen the fox worrying the deer in the first place but then found the deer carcase i could of assumed that it might well of been the work of a big cat as one had been seen in the area at the time of death,the scat too was quite large for a fox but fox scat it certainly was.Well this was the largest roe that i had thought a fox would of been capable of pulling down until i simply Googled "fox kills deer"the other day and straight up came a report from New York state in America of a red fox killing a 35lb first year deer in someones garden.Not forgetting that American red foxes are the result of imports from England by hunting folk emigrating there a century or so back and so are of the same stock as our English ones this means that a red fox weighing around 12 to 15lb should be capable of ,in theory,actually killing a 35lb deer.News to me,but then they never cease to surprise me those most tenacious of beasts the fox......

The way big cats hunt,catch,kill and eat deer in Sussex

The picture shows a fallow deer most likely hunted,caught and eaten by a big cat in the Ashdown forest in East Sussex.Note the fir tree on the left where evidence showed this was underneath where the big cat laid in wait for it,s victim.The leaves scuffed off the bank into the stream showed where the struggle was.It illustrates the ambush technique and the distances involved between where the big cat lied down and where the fallow would of been i.e.half way up or thereabouts of the stream bank......

Big cats target deer in Sussex primarily from july to middish febuary,mostly 1st year roe are taken,sometimes 1st year fallow calves,rarely 2nd year roe and fallow and never mature fallow bucks whose huge rack of antlers would present an unsurmountable obstacle to overcome i suppose added to their great size,they truly are magnificent beasts,too much even for the powerful big cats.Roe kids spend their first year with their dams and when travelling the does usually go first followed at sometimes a little distance by the kids,occasionally they feed seperately but more rarely travel seperately.Fallow are herd animals proper but are often split into various groups depending on age, sex and relations but again usually the elder ones and/or the parents go first when moving as opposed to feeding.I have never found or heard of a muntjac kid or adult being attributed to being the prey of a big cat here in Sussex,maybe their thick necks and tank-like gait negates this.They have greatly increased their range throughout the county in the past decade or 2 but are by no means common in all places,they are though the third most common deer in Sussex.Far less common are red deer and their are only small pockets of these huge animals about,mostly in the far north east of Sussex,they are well out of range for big cats.Not so big,in fact i would of thought that the hare-like and tiny Chinese water deer could be taken by big cats although there are even fewer of these around perhaps numbering less than a hundred,someone once mistook one at first glance for a wallaby in Mid-Sussex a while back and last but not least the red deer-like sika are apparently in East Sussex, i,ve never seen one but i,m told are in similar numbers as the water deer,i.e not many at all.As i,ve said already roe and fallow are the bread and butter for Sussex big cats.....

Big cats employ,to the best of my knowledge,3 main techniques to hunt deer that are ambush,stalking and coursing with the latter quite probably preceded by a "botched"stalk,it,is also highly likely that a big cat would actually come across a deer when it is pottering along the hedges and such like which is where the deer would be hiding up .The summer hunting consists of a degree of twilight stalking and i have several reports of big cats coursing deer at this time,very large big cats too which would suggest that it,s a tactic that has had a reasonable amount of success.So we have a big cat that is mooching in and out of cover gets wind of a deer or 2 either by scent,sight or sound then stalks then catches,if the stalk gets botched then it would give chase giving rise to witness reports of big cats coursing deer out of cover.Seeing as there are relatively fewer accounts of big cats stalking deer in these summer evenings it must be presumed that it most often goes on in the deep leaf laden cover of thick hedgerows or coppice type woods etc.Another reason why over manicured farms are not good for cats.Moonlit nights also offer good stalking oppurtunities and it,s thought that the finding one autumn a few years back near Lewes of a roe carcase in the middle of a stubble field was the result of an aborted stalk from the hedge with the roe fleeing into the field away from the cover that hid the cat and then followed a brief course with the cat catching it some 150 yards in the open,once into their stride though even a young roe should outstrip their feline pursuer,streamlined though they may be.There is no way that a big cat would spy it,s target in the distance and to then run it down cheetah-like,big cat versus deer courses have to be,in my mind,botched stalks or at the very least very close stalks then runs, a sort of cross between cheetah and leopard style.In other words the cat would of liked to of caught up with the deer easily to grab it,s throat but having been rumbled has decided to give chase knowing that this method has given it a degree of success in the past.I originally thought that accounts of big cats coursing deer through woods or whatever were young inexperienced cats trying their luck but evidence has shown in recent years that open ground chasing of deer has brought the cats that do this some success.....

Onto ambushing now as in winter the cover has all but gone from a lot of places which gave the cats the cover they needed to hide themselves which enabled the summer stalks and this is where most of the evidence comes from as to how big cats catch and feed,i,m not saying they don,t stalk in winter at all but when they do it,s mostly at night under cover of darkness.This technique is for obvious reasons practised also at night and in winter when the nights are longer as ambushing is very time hungry as far as the cats are concerned.Twilght is also shorter.The time of estimated death of ambushed deer has also been at night which completes this theory so far and also carcases have been found at dawn still wet and red.Anyway,we have a big cat emerging late into dusk in more often winter from it,s daytime lair such as dense scrub or woodland,anywhere undisturbed,it will then at some point perhaps in the early evening approach it,s ambush point which can be,like the picture, by a stream crossing,some cover by a deer path intersection in a wood,thick hedge bottom and will then lie in wait for it,s prey to show.Like i said virtually all carcases have been the younger ones so the cat would let the doe or elder one/s pass,likely sensing an animals size by hearing the difference between it,s hoof clatter perhaps then rushing up to the kid from it,s hiding place,attacking just to the side of the front,grabbing the underneath of the throat with it,s bottom jaw and so clamping the windpipe with it,s stronger,the lower one,jaw.This angle of attack occurs at just about every kill i,ve seen where i,ve been able to judge the,if any,ambush point,in other words 45degrees from the deers muzzle.As the deer came up the bank from the stream the big cat rushed out from under the fir tree at this angle to give it the optimum grip.Suffocation follows.Haemmoraging inside the neck merely points to the pressure involved, since bruising can only occur before death and wasn,t actually the cause of death.Simple lack of air was.The roe kid would scrape the ground with it,s hooves a bit but animals caught in this way are practically helpless and the big cat would only be straining against it,s weight a bit,this is shown by corresponding hoof and paw prints found at kill sites,personally i have never found evidence of momentous struggles between cat and deer .It would also appear by this evidence(the distance between cat print and front deer hooves(see evidence page on bigcatsinsussex.co.uk) that the cats keep themselves well away from the strangling deer unlike say leopards from documentarys who look very up close and personal,roe hooves are sharp and will cut quite badly .The same technique is carried out on fallow however with roe they are usually half carried around 15 yards away sometimes to more cover sometimes to seemingly nowhere in particular.Fallow,by their bigger size are just about always eaten where they were killed or at least within a yard or 2.

The now dead carcase is then opened up cleanly and precisely from the anus to the top of the rib cage,the colon,small and large intestines together with the paunch are taken out and often deposited a long distance away from the site,several 100 yards usually,as is the paunch.They could do this to put scavengers off the scent so they can eat without hassle.They will then presumably eat the offal first including the liver ,spleen,diaphram and heart is always gone as are the lungs,the ribs are eaten down nearly as far as the spine but usually not quite,the fillets are nibbled at and very occasionally shoulder meat is eaten as well as the muscle meat on the hind legs,strangely often the skin covering the belly is removed and carried off like the intestines but is sometimes eaten.The skeleton on a purely big cat consumed carcase should be whole and not separated.The overall appearance of the resulting leftover carcase is of a clean and slick operation as i,ve said many times before without the mess attributed to scavenger finds,it,s as if the body landed where it was found neatly butchered with barely no fur lying about,no blood,bile, nothing,at least this is what it,s like on fresh found bodys but as soon as foxes move in the chaos starts with roughly torn skin,jagged edges to bones,mess etc.etc.like the pic above.

In all about an estimated 15 to 20 lb of meat bone and offal is consumed,rarely 25lb and in one case of a fallow found in june 30+lb of flesh had gonebut it was thought in this case that a mother and cub were responsible.In the areas where a carcase is found in the presumed home range of the smaller big cats of around 22" at the shoulder(lab sized or bit bigger than a labrador)the lower end of sub 20lb is eaten but noticeably increases a bit in winter and where the massive 26" tall(alsation etc.sized cats)above 20 to 25lb is eaten.This is done by analysis of the estimated weight of the original complete deer carcase and digestive tracts minus the meat, bone etc. you get the picture.My previous estimation therefore of the mass the more commonly seen 22" tall big cats at around 50lb could well be a slight underestimate as a 50lb beast could not surely eat 20lb at one sitting,well my 45lb dogs can eat 15lb of meat if they get the chance to steal it and carnivores like wolves and big cats are used to eating one heck of a lot at a time then not for quite a while.Maybe the 22" cats weigh around 60lb.So,the 26"cats eating 25lb of flesh,ie.our fallow hunters should be weighing in excess of 80 lb but at 1/3 of it,s body weight in food maybe 90lb plus seems more accurate.Date compiled on wild tigers showed that they could eat 100lb of flesh at one sitting then fast for many days,at a rough estimation of their body weight say 500lb would give 1/5th of it,s body weight.If say 20lb of flesh had been consumed at 1/5th this would give the big cat in question a body weight of 100lb and this is at a height of 22" maybe 23" at best.This is massive by any degree and is not correlated by the more streamlined shape of British big cats as compared to their counterparts like African leopards.Of course,i have included each and every carcase and most have had less than 20lb eaten,Clearly,i have only scratched the surface here and more research needs to be done with accurate necropsy reports undertaken,preferably under recorded vetinarian supervision.I had always assummed that weight for weight British big cats are taller than leopards due to their visibly sleeker and lighter frames but their greater food consumption at one sitting may suggest other facts like they consume more at one sitting,this is a complex subject but i,m sure that once reasonably understood could give reasonable estimations of size of individual big cats guaged on how much they had consumed of a carcase,very interesting indeed i think.....

So much food from one kill is going to last a big cat quite a while and though it,s impossible to say that they haven,t snacked on smaller stuff in between ,in 2010 i found 2 carcases in neighbouring parishes(2 miles apart) with estimated times of death at being 5 to 6 days away from each other.The year before when snow was around kills were reported at the same place a week apart,week after week for many weeks which suggests that a major kill would last a cat from 5 to 7 days between meals.I know from experience that predators go on rolls,that is to say that they can exclusively target a certain prey item for extended periods using the same technique that has served them well,success breeds success so it,s by no means too much to theorise that a big cat would target deer week in week out until circumstances force it to change......


In writing this article i have compiled data from around a dozen most likely big cat deer kills found in Sussex that i have investigated over the years,i have ommited the info from plausible big cat kills from elsewhere in the country but realise that they may have slightly differing techniques to our Sussex cats.I have little 1st hand experience from elsewhere in the country....

Many thanks go to Andy at Westcountrydeerservices.co.uk for his estimations of flesh amounts eaten ......

Sussex big cats do prey on badgers

The evidence that Sussex big cats prey on badgers is stacking up.Firstly,the young badger skull found in march was at a sighting of a big cat seen going up a tree at night.The witness stated that he heard a terrific racket like several cats fighting and,worried about his own cat being outside,went out armed with a lamp shining it around the field to see a very large black,alsation sized cat running away towards the nearby wood and go up one of the trees.

Last year while investigating the Telscombe sheep kills a partly eaten badger carcase was reported to me by the farmer,cause of death unknown,however there was intense big cat activity going on there at the time,this shouldn,t be a victim of circumstance i know but it,s still interesting nonetheless.

A few years previously further east in the county a witness had heard a terrific screaming noise she described as like a cat fight only louder,deeper and more violent sounding,the next morning a badger carcase was found in the garden partially eaten.

I have never heard a badger make more of a sound than the pig-like grunting noises it makes when rooting about for food however i remember from somewhere that they can make a terrible ,blood curdling screaming sound that sounds like "6 cats fighting together" although i would of thought that if a big cat was taking down a badger the throat grip that they prefer would of stifled any screams,not so it seems.

In the past year of wildlife surveys and trail camera set ups in areas of intense big cat activity a distinct lack of,especially young,badgers has been noted and this is contrary to observers in other areas who have noted no notable decline in their local badger populations.

Anyhow,i contacted Johnathen Mc.Gowen from all the way over in Dorset(see his very informative website here http://www.thenaturalstuff.co.uk/ ) to see if he had come across any evidence of big cats preying on badgers down in his neck of the woods and he replied "I very rarely find any evidence of large cats eating badgers but... my first sighting was of a puma stalking a 6 month old badger cub.... i have seen several photos of cat eaten badger carcasses and found remains of such in my study areas... along with several eyewitness accounts from people who have seen (big)cats killing badgers...I think that they prefer deer,rabbits then foxes and lastly badgers."This was very valuable information from Johnathen Mc.Gowen as Dorset is around a 100 miles away and shows that badgers as prey in Sussex could not be just a purely local phenonemon.

Well,i haven,t seen a badger carcase myself yet that could be attributed to a big cat kill like i have with deer and fox carcases but things do certainly seem to be fitting together even the fact that i found the skull in march which is the "hungry gap"time of year for big cats in Sussex.Without a body there is no murder but i found a skull so it,s a start to be going along with,a carcase is the best evidence but i must admit that i,m still very surprised that badgers fall prey to anything seeing as how tough they are.Keeping an open mind is the best way to explore new (to me) possibilities........