Fisher, Coyote, Oppossum and Raccoon Scavenge Deer Remains (Trail Cam Results)

 About a week ago, In a post linked right here, I found something strange. The heavily gnawed on skull, connected to six vertebrae segments of a Whitetail Deer. The next morning, I returned to move the remains to a more accessible area, less than five feet from the edge of the frozen over Sudbury River, and attached a motion activated trail camera to a near by tree, facing it. The camera was left there for 5 nights, to record infrared (flash-free night vision) videos of any animals that visited the scene...

                                                             COMMON RACCOON:

                                                                            NIGHT 1:

                 

                                           1. Raccoon finds the carcass, Hesitates on log a while.

2. Raccoon gets first taste of the carcass

                                                                             NIGHT 2:

                                         3. Raccoon is alert after hearing passing car w/ loud motor

                                                                          NIGHT 3:

                                               4. Raccoon shows up for the third night in a row.

                                                                    VIRGINIA OPOSSUM

                                                                             NIGHT 4:

5. Wow. An opossum. This may sound hard to believe, But I've never seen a live opossum before, nor have any of my cameras. They're supposed to be a very common animal in Massachusetts, but despite all my camera trapping (usually in relatively urban areas), I've never gotten footage of one. Opossums are the only marsupials in North America, since their ancestors migrated from Australia, through South America and Antarctica in prehistoric times, when they were still connected. 

                                                                           FISHER
                                        

                                                                          NIGHT 3:

                                                    6. A Fisher comes right up and sniffs the camera. 

                      7 (Cover Screenshot and Video ) . The Fisher then smells around the bones. I think the oppossum and fisher missed their opportunity, and I think the raccoon got to all the good meat before it's competitor's arrived. I think this because the raccoon was there for so much more time than all the other animals combined, and while the raccoon has lots of videos of it munching away, the videos of all other animals in the sequence only show them visiting, sniffing, and leaving.

                                                             EASTERN COYOTE

                                                                      NIGHT 4:

8. A Coyote's head pops up from behind the snow covered mound of leaves. This is probably one of the individuals who left the tracks all over the original location of the carcass. I'm not sure why but it never got closer. It was probably a 1 year old, not yet sure what is dangerous, and what isn't.

9. You have to look carefully, and maybe re-watch a couple times, but you can see the silhouette of the coyote leaving. It is near the middle of the video, running on the frozen Sudbury River.

I also got many other videos of other animals, of course, on the carcass, and I may be wrong, but I feel like people already see enough Mice, Chickadees, and Titmice, and you would rather just see the animals that we don't see everyday anyways.