Data for: Use of viscera from hunted roe deer by vertebrate scavengers in summer in central European mountainous mixed forest

Carrion is a valuable resource in forests, providing sustenance for vertebrate and invertebrate scavenger communities and contributing to ecosystem functions, such as nutrient cycling. Intensive ungulate hunting, and thereby extraction of carcasses, removes large quantities of potential carrion from the system, denying a valuable resource from scavenger fauna. It may be possible to reduce the loss and negative consequences to forest biodiversity by retaining evisceration residues from hunted deer, where full carcasses cannot be retained. However, what roll evisceration residues play as a resource for scavengers in temperate forests is not well understood. In this study, we exposed 47 carrion samples from hunted roe deer, in front of triple sets of camera traps, to examine how hunting remains are removed and fed upon by vertebrate scavengers. Overall, 70 % of the samples were completely removed from experimental sites by vertebrates. We detected twelve vertebrate taxa feeding on eviscera..., Between May and October 2022 eight roe deer viscera samples from hunted roe deer per month were exposed to vertebrate scavenging in front of camera traps on 47 individual locations. Samples visits, feeding and removal events of samples by vertebrate scavengers were assessed. Events were deemed independent if more than 20 minutes passed between consecutive pictures. Samples were observed for a maximum of 16 days. The data was used to assess the composition of the vertebrate scavenging fauna using evisceration residues, to determine which scavengers remove entire samples of residues and how long viscera are available to invertebrate scavenging.,