These images are disturbing, especially the first one. They show the harsh reality of the struggle for survival for wild creatures, even in the relatively comfortable confines of a suburban marshland park.
For the second time this winter, I stumbled upon a dead deer in a remote area of my the marsh when I take many of my wildlife photos. (I documented the earlier sighting in a posting that I titled “The Buck Was Stopped Here.”) This time, the skeleton was relatively intact and I was surprised to see that it was another buck. I am still baffled about the cause of his death. Predators? Starvation?
As a photographer and as a human, I struggled in deciding how to present this subject in photographs. I knew that I was not going to remove the body far from where I found it, so I had to settle for a relatively cluttered backdrop. Was it better to show the whole body, as I did in the third photo and keep death at a distance? Should I photograph it to look like the deer had fallen asleep and died peacefully, as the second shot suggests, the way we treat death at a funeral home?
I decided that my best shot was the one in which I forced the viewer essentially to look death in the face directly, by focusing directly on the deer’s now empty eye socket. Death is a reality that can’t be avoided. The photo is a bit macabre, I know, but it speaks to me of life and of death, of the passing of one of God’s creatures.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
A tough subject. Of course every living thing must die. It’s peculiar how in frequently we find the remains. Animals are good at finding private places to die (unless they are stopped in their tracks by cars, which is another story). I appreciate the care which went into composing and presenting these pictures.
It’s easy to focus on the happier part of wildlife but this too is a reality including the fact that the deer has been picked clean providing food for other creatures.
Not a very old animal judging by the height and condition of its teeth. Do you think the deer you find in the marsh might have been shot by hunters? Is there a hunting area nearby? Perhaps chronic wasting disease is working though the deer population there? Hard to believe they die of starvation in your area where there is no persistent snow cover, but it’s always a possibility. Legs look like they are missing, perhaps carted off by a coyote or fox?
I think the leg bones were nearby, but not attached. There are supposed to be police snipers that shoot deer at night to cull the herd and archers in one part of the park, but they are supposed to retrieve the bodies. The location was about two miles from the nearest paved road, so it seems a bit far for the deer to have traveled if it had been hit by a car.
The skeleton seems to be remarkably intact. R.I.P., young buck!
I was surprised that it was so intact, but with the bones picked pretty clean–I don’t think the weather caused the flesh and meat to disappear and it was probably too cold for insects, so I suspect that it was some assortment of fox, coyote, and/or vultures.
I’ve been seeing a lot of this in southern Michigan since our record-breaking seven feet of snow started melting. As the drifts have subsided they’ve exposed the remains of more deer than I’m accustomed to at one time. The record lows in the neighborhood of -30 F were certainly hard on them.
I like the first photo the best. A person may initially be repelled, but then they can settle into the photo and examine death. As I biologist and having had meat goats that we slaughtered and butchered ourselves, these photos are not gruesome by my measure and I find them interesting.
Thanks for the post, Mike. You always are so thoughtful in both your words and your presentation. I think these are important photos. They show the full circle of life, for even in death, as Lyle Krahn already mentioned, the deer supported life.
Sometimes nature isn’t neat and tidy and this is the reality that someone who studies it has to learn to face. I’m sure that this winter was very hard on deer and other animals in this area.
Your sensitivity does you credit, Mike, and all three presentations are well worthy of contemplation. The first is quite unforgettable.