Little Mystery

This is a sad mystery, some would say not a mystery at all, just an everyday occurrence of no great significance. But I wish I knew what happened. During our usual morning routine of heading out to the woods to see what the night brought, my dog disappeared. That never happens. She normally does not leave my side while she constantly tries to engage me in a game of stick throwing. After a few minutes of calling, I went to see what she got herself into. She wasn't far; just a few hundred feet into the woods where I could not see her before. She was nose to the ground, munching now and again while she investigated this one area. What got and held her interest was a huge, scattered pile of fur. Just fur. No bones, no other tissue. The area was loaded with deer prints (it was not far from where I feed them), but I did not see any prints of any other animal that might have done this. The fur seemed cut: it was in sort of clumps, with one side sheered. Then I saw a bit of blood. Not a lot, just some drops. Then I saw that some of the fur was attached to some bits of skin. Again, not much. The mystery is that I did not see a carcass, nor a trail of where it might have been dragged, nor any prints of anything that might have taken it. I wondered if this pile had been covered with snow, and was only now emerging because of the melting. But, the blood looked bright and fresh, and the fur light, fluffy, nothing wet or partially under the snow. Now, this giant fur deposit was pretty close behind the house who owned the property I was lurking on, so I decided to leave and come back if I knew they weren't home. Later today, I took the usual walk with the dogs, past this area. The dogs came across two other, though smaller, patches of this same phenomenon. Fur, larger bits of ski with fur attached, NO other prints. The fur was still sitting light on the surface of the snow, NOT like the snow melted to uncover this mystery. This is one of the small patches - and the prints ones MY dogs put there despite me trying to keep them away. I am not just being morbidly curious. I want to know because I might need or want to DO something. If this was a deer, and it was killed by some animal predator, it may not be a good idea to continue to feed the deer in my woods. The predator now knows they go here (although they did even before I fed them - just not daily). Further, whatever kind of predator can take down a deer should not be in this neighborhood! But, if the deer was killed by a human, IF in fact all this fur belonged to a deer, THEN I would want to report it. Deer hunting is only permitted in certain months of the year, and this is NOT one of them. Plus, if it was shot in those woods it's MUCH too close to houses. Hmmm, the sun is setting now, but still light enough. Maybe if I go lurk behind that house to investigate, they won't see me....