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 evisceration
residues, including martens (Martes spp.), red kites (Milvus milvus) and
garden dormice (Eliomys quercinus). Common buzzards (Buteo buteo) and
Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) were the most frequent feeders on
carrion samples, while red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) displaced the largest
proportion of samples. Finally, we found a range of insectivorous bird and
mammal species using hunting remains as a source for invertebrate prey,
while not scavenging on the remains directly. We demonstrate that
evisceration residues can be a valuable resource for a wide range of taxa
and suggest that viscera retention from hunted game may contribute to
resource provisioning for scavengers in forest ecosystems.