kill site

The place where a predator brought down and consumed its prey — identifiable by blood, fur or feather scatter, drag marks, cached remains, and the pattern of consumption. A kill site tells you what killed, what died, and often how. Coyotes scatter fur in a wide radius; mountain lions drag their kill to cover and cache it under debris; raptors leave a neat circle of plucked feathers called a plucking post. The arrangement of bones, the parts that are eaten first, and the parts that are left behind are all legible.