Field dressed my elk within ear-shot of camp a few years ago just to see for myself what you asked...
Just before dark we heard the coyotes at the gut pile, and the competition for the scraps went on for quite some time...
Next morning went over to investigate...Nothing but a few bloody shreds left...Nature wastes nothing...
“Next morning went over to investigate...Nothing but a few bloody shreds left.”
I shot a ground squirrel near my garden about a week ago. I was also very busy making tomato sauce, so I decided I’d grab a shovel and dispose of its body a little bit later. I went out to move it just before dark and it was already gone! Either a coyote, a fox, or maybe even a skunk found it in just the few hours it had been laying there, and hauled it off for dinner. Nature certainly doesn’t waste much.
The hunt club I used to hunt with leased about 6,000 acres in a county that was shotgun only due to mostly thick undergrowth. We used dogs to run the deer and hunters had to draw “stands” along cleared paths and stands 100 yds apart with clear safety rules, no shooting down the stand lines. So every deer we shot was on the stand line or near it and the gut piles were left there for the most part. We frequently used the same trails the next day and I NEVER saw a gut pile still there the next day. There was not even blood on the ground. You literally could not find any evidence at all.