I mentioned woods smell like death..

[growalot]

Well I have been searching the source for the last week or so...I found an area of concentration but saw nothing...until today and there it was out in plain sight...not much left but fur...but from the size...I think it could have been a fisher...way bigger than our cat...dark brown fur and it was on its back so I think it had tan strip from arm pit to arm pit...pretty chewed up but one back paw remained and it was huge. found it near a dead hollow maple tree. Something must have dragged it there because I looked in that area several times on my walks and I know the smell was around but there was no bag of fur..

 

I have looked it up to make sure and they say they have no natural predators...so I do not know what happened...

Edited July 7, 2016 by growalot

[growalot]

BTW...if anyone ever checked my search history....Well they'd just wonder...

So when I got as close as I could...Smell wasn't pleasant but the flies and bees were worse...It's back leg was gone and it's belly tore open ...but I noticed a thin white bone across the dark fur near the hole where the rear leg had been. Well I thought on it all the way home...Why did that look familiar??? Ahhhh my DIL carried around a coon penis bone...so I looked it up...apparently it was a male ...really??!! What does that!

[growalot]

Something had moved it again and I noticed feathers so put a cam over it...Sneaky Devils...I haven't seen them cruising the sky over us ...but they sure smelled what I did....Still don't know what killed it though...

[Daveboone]

I found one on the center line of the highway once....I imagine one could get injured by a car and go a fair way...

As I recall they are quite territorial, could also  have died from injuries with another fisher/ bobcat or coyote.