Yep, seen that same thing many time, thanks for the pictures. A warden told that a younger lion may kill for the amusement/trill of the hunt and kill and I can see where they can make it a game and fun. As far as not eating them, a lot of times they get chased out of the area or been pushed on and they kill again. This has been what the experts have told me. If there is something to kill they will kill more then not kill especially in a elk yard or a deer yard in the winter.

There was a Squatch here a couple years that had killed 50 deer and covered them with straw bales to keep them from freezing. He was old and his teeth were bad so he couldn't eat them frozen. He found a lady friend and moved on though. True story. Don't call BS on me or I'll be mad to ya.

[quote=Osky
Wanna borrow some wolves?

Osky[/quote]

Sure send them down my way, way too many deer.
They can't kill enough of them.

I'll bet that ND Game & Fish checked everyone of those deer for bullet holes...If it's a BS story the truth will come out.

I sure wish they would let me Dirty...

I have hunted and been on chases for the big cats, guided and shot control around them but I have a lot to learn about them so keep that in mind when I say the bait piles I put out here never get covered by lynx or bobcats that visit. Their natural kills I find are covered. The photo of the young lady next to the cow elk that is covered has a comment it may be scavenged. Do you fellows out there find it common they cover non kills?

I ask because we are getting the big cats around here now.

Osky

It happens all the time and you can't argue with them.

I have not witnessed surplus killing but I have quite a few friends that run lions and they have.I know of several incidents where lions have done this with bighorn sheep.They can figure out very quickly if an animal were gunshot.

Agreed. Why would a farmer leave deer to rot on his hay pile?

I would think it odd that they would cover a non-kill but can't say for sure. I mentioned it may have been scavenged because it had snowed that night and the lion covered it after the snow. The elk was stinky which I would not expect on a fresh kill in cold temps. It is possible that it killed it earlier and then re-covered it after eating on it. The paunch was exposed but not much consumed. The day we found the carcass there was a female on it that we ran but ran out of daylight before we caught her. The next time we went up (a couple weeks later) there was a male and female track both on the carcass. I think the male was mostly interested in the female as it looked like his track was in hers on the trail leading into and out of the carcass. I can't even say for sure if he fed on the carcass but his belly looked pretty full when the guy picked it up for pics. They left on the same trail, luckily the dogs stayed with the Tom.

I went up two weeks ago and there isn't much left but there was a 1-2 day old lion track that had come in and spent a little time there before moving out. It has never been re-covered as completely as it was when we first found it.

Pretty sure I've seen that pic of the guy holding the cat several times over the last couple of years.

A statement made was that predators kill more than they can eat at one time, I. e., surplus killing. While this may happen occasionally in odd circumstances this doesn't make sense for long term survivability of any predator species. Predator populations, unless hunted severely, generally change with prey abundance.

I can comment from experience. 25 years ago or so I flew some winter routes with a friend who was a company pilot for a company in the territories. We went over a lake with 19 dead caribou scattered in the deep snow on the ice. Wolves had done it. He told me he and other pilots had seen kill sites before and that they were not rare. The story was clear in the snow and very few looked as if they had been torn open or eaten on or so we could see from a low pass of 6-700 feet or so.

Osky

Don't know much about lions, but I've seen bobcat stack beaver carcass' like that before, at locations where I was required to leave them onsite.

If you look close at one of deers front legs, you can see it has been broken and twisted. The lion may have killed those deer, but it may have been salvaging road kills also.
If you also look at the side of that bale, you can see where the cat was clawing hay out of it to cover the deer with. Makes sense it would make a better cover material than snow, for easier access later.

Look at the hay bales. A lion likes to cover its kills, the bales are neatly swiped out with very sharp claws, I guarantee you you can't do that with a pitch fork!

If this is all over the media I am sure the DNR has checked it over already. It sure is a big cat. Wow! Watch the papers if something is fishy about it, something will turn up eventually. There is to many deer to not see what really happened.JMO

The lion left sign where he killed deer in the snow and drug them to the bale pile.

The deer are ruining his hay. The lion is a threat to his livestock. Kill them all, he says.

And the cycle of life continues.

That’s a beatiful theory that bunny huggers love, which has been proven completely false by thousands of eye-witness accounts, like Osky and many others on this site.
Let me rephrase the question I asked previously: if you come across free or cheap, easy to get food, like a blowout sale at the grocery store on a staple food you’ll eat every day, do you only take 1 meal’s worth, planning to come all the way back to the store the next day and hope there’s some left? Of course not. Nether do predators. Easy groceries = stock up. We all do it.

Predator populations follow prey abundance because once they’ve decimated the prey they move on, starve or cannibalize. What did you think, that wild predators practice sustainable harvest and birth control or something?? The natural cycle is a viscous cycle. Hunting and trapping has the ability to “take the edges off” the cycle... when we’re allowed to do it.

knew a guy in Colorado that was trying to get deer fence to put on his hay. Fish and Game was being slow about bringing it, He put a sign at the end of his driveway that said poachers welcome here. he got that fence a couple days later

Yup. Well said.