A deer eating meat goes against everything I know about whitetails and their behavior.
But it appears that a young whitetail has been captured on film eating a gut pile, and even a rabbit.
Even after seeing these photos, I doubt that deer often eat on meat. But who am I to say? You can view the full set of photos at Outdoor Life‘s website.
Squibb says while the deer tried to puncture the body cavity, it never succeeded. Rather it consumed the dead rabbit’s legs and ears.
While gut piles are prevalent in the ecosystem, it is unlikely they will become a significant source of nutrition for whitetails. What does need to be study further is how likely it is that deer contract diseases from eating the fat and other parts of dead animals they encounter. Other animals photographed at bait piles included uncommon candidates including squirrels and rabbits (actually seen eating parts of the gut piles) and wild turkeys and pheasants, photographed only, but never seen eating from these bait sites… [continued]
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