Hard to say looking at dead heads. Definitely not age as both bucks antlers appear to be about mid life (healthiest age). And most certainly not poachers because we were a couple miles in from any vehicle accessible road and poachers always take the heads.
Most likely a combination of hard winter and natural predators. The fact that a whitetail dead head was right next to a mule deer head makes me think a mountain lion may have killed and dragged them to the location. Or they were found dead and a Grizzly bear dragged them there. Cats are crazy good hunters, bears are more scavengers than hunters, but bears and cats will both drag and stash food items for later use.
Coyotes & wolves dont drag deer around and stash them but that doesnt mean they didnt make the initial kills. So who knows. It's rare to find 2 dead heads that close together, very rare for it to be 2 mature bucks, and crazy rare for it to be two different species of deer!
Getting an elk that morning was exciting and all, but my buddy and I were more blown away by the super rare dead head find. The two of us have put a lot of elk on the ground over the years, but never before in either of our lives have we found two dead heads like that. Been kicking myself for not getting a picture of how they were both lying on the ground close to each other when I found them...
