Kill

[Cowboyvon]

I was out a few days ago and came across a lion kill...it was pretty typical a big mound with a lot of hair. The hounds got to chewing around on it and pulled out the rumen or paunch, I called them out trying not to dusturb it anymore. So we circled around and finally hit a track but it was headed out into some rough steep country away from camp and it was already 3 and we were 7 or 8 miles away from camp and the kill appeared to be really fresh so I decided to head back and get there early the next morning to have the best chance of catching him. So we get there the next morning and and it seems like the lion didn't come back, everything is the same as it was. We circle around and get some tail whipping and a boo hoo a couple times but can't trail anywhere. I get to kicking around on the kill to see just what it was and there is no carcass, no bones nothing, just deer hair the paunch and some intestine.. So we really get to circling and looking but nothing.

I was wondering if this is something anyone has seen before, where the lion covers up or makes a mound to cover up the paunch and takes the carcass a long ways off. Or maybe a female with small kittens makes a kill eats what she wants and hauls the carcass back to the den. How far is the farthest you've seen them haul a kill off? What really surprised me was how big the mound was to not have anything in it but hair and the paunch ....

[tod watterson]

seen where a 3 legged tom killed a spike elk and drug it 400 yards till it got caught in a barb wire fence .caught a big tom bobcat that had killed a fawn and drug it 250 yards down off a sunny hillside.when he got down in the bottom of the canyon he couldnt drag it on the flat so he buried it .3 feet of snow on top of it and he had scratched every bit of snow for 20 feet all around ,seen bobcats bury alot of deer,always alot of snow on them.

[Mike Leonard]

Brett,
I bet she had it buried there for awhile and something got to pestering her and had her bothered and she just hauled it off to another spot she liked better. I have seen this happen many times when the kill is in a place where it can be found pretty easy. She might have been there a couple of days and dug it up and required it a few times hence the big mound. I find lions will at times kill and elk in a spot they don,t like but at times it,s pretty hard for them to drag them due to the size or the terrain. At times they will open them up and eat on them a few times and then start the moving process when they have the weight reduced some. Usually they only open them up once they are in a place where they want to start eating on them but if forced they will move them later if they have to. I saw where a female killed a big mule deer doe one time and she was down in a sort of wash and pretty well hid and I actually back tracked her to the find. he had opened it up and pulled the paunch out and ate a little but not much and then she had just pulled a couple of rakes of dirt and grass over it. I decided to check it the next morning and I was surprised to find it gone. this was all dry ground so I looked around a bit and I could see where a leg was hanging down and scraping the ground occasionally I followed this.She went about 150 yards and hit a forest trail and headed right down it.She had that deer up other shoulders and it was only making a drag occasionally and just a speck of blood or hair occasionally. Her front tracks were really digging in with the extra weight on her fron end. She went 4/10th. Of a mile on the edge of the trail and then veered left up into the boulders and climbed up about 50 feet and cashed it under a big cedar tree. So she went nearly a half mile with it, and later I found out shehadtwo pretty small kittens down there and they finished it up in a few days.

[davidg1!]

Young Tom killed horse colt drug it over half mile into a wash. colt weighed 450 tom weghed 125.

[FullCryHounds]

Lions will cover up even the smallest piece of meat, hair, etc. look around the area, you might find other piles they've left behind. Here's a collection of trail cam videos I took a few years ago and put together, most lions stay at the kill site, even sleeping on it.

http://www.bowhunting.tv/playvideowindo ... 54&id=1492

[Cowboyvon]

I've seen a kill where the lion left the paunch right on top like a package also where a Tom had killed a nice buck struggled and got out of a snare left the kill scattered all over and still came back and was caught the next day...also where a lion was running a guys trap line for him and ate 2 bobcats but didn't care for the liver and left it..... But this mound was so big for what it had in it. It just seems to me that she ate what she wanted there, covered up what was left for some reason and hauled the rest up and over the top and down into a pretty deep nasty canyon. I don't think there was much pestering her there unless its a couple of toms that have been playing cat an mouse with her and each other in the area...I think she has a couple of kittens in there and has been really trying to avoid these toms ....maybe