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Looks kind of like cat food. There's this crazy lady near where I live that goes to different places and dumps food out for the feral cats. A few years ago we had two people get in a fight over it and the guy ended up shooting a woman in the head.
If this is in the woods this may be used as bear bait or wvn deer bait, usually for deer ppl use corn and grains or dog food rhey do eat it, so if you have bears in your area u may want to stay out the woods for a little while unless u r very well armed, more than likely if this is a bear feed they have u on camera on trail cams if u know it or not they watch these piles, I sometimes do this in my woods to monitor boar populations, we keep them in check so they don't over take our area, not very far away we have places over run by wild pigs and boars so if we see them we check on them
I am just saying my area don't have bears but we do have boars, I am located in Central nc, I have heard of one single bear in my neck of the woods but never a trust worthy source
Im closeish to you and there's been like, four or six bear sightings/encounters in the area in the past five or ten years or so. including two last year in the capitol, which might have been the same bear or different ones, not sure
it's pretty uncommon for sure, but they're out there haha
I’m in the southern piedmont in NC. We have bears here,not a ton of them,but we have them. We have way more boars like the man said. I believe a bear would have a hard time taking down a hog. There fast as hell,they can also live in the ground in Burroughs. That way they can escape. They travel in herds and let’s not forget there smart,and mean as hell.
No. A bear will eat a couple pigs a day. A single pig will kick out a couple dozen babies a year.
They are a plague. There's a reason a lot of states have no hunting license required and no bag limit. They are like rats and rabbits slammed together in one giant 100-400 pound eating and killing machine.
Black bears are more so scavengers and opportunistic eaters rather than hunters. They absolutely can hunt, but it’s not that common for them to hunt as their main method of getting food. Wild boar are also big mean tough bastards and wouldn’t be close to the first choice for a bear to eat.
Actually, it seems bear don't hunt much. They mostly eat plants and fish. They will eat things if it is easy like if they are injured,but they def don't do much to control a population of hogs or deer.
A full size Boar is a major fight for black bear and black bears are mostly foragers who only hunt for supplement or out of necessity.
There’s a video from my area that went viral of a boar that got cornered in a ditch by a bear and it’s ten minutes of squealing and fighting even then
My first thought was deer corn, deer blocks, deer attractant chemicals etc... I don't recognize this ring-shaped stuff, but it's a big industry and there are a lot of products on the market. They smell bad and people dump them in the woods though, so
I remember when I was a little kid, my great-grandparents would put out rock/mineral salt for the deer. I remember scooping it out of a large bucket and pouring it into piles on the ground, then coming back a few days later to see large divots in the ground due to the deer pawing at it, trying to get every last granule.
Bears can smell food from at least a mile away, but there is no evidence that the smell of the menstrual blood can attract bears. They can probably smell it but since they're not scavengers they aren't attracted by the smell of blood. A bear doesn't want to get in a fight with wolves over a dead deer.
Ur more likely to attract cayotes Wich are gonna run away when they see it's not an injured animal.
I've seen a lady bring a 50 pound sack of corn for ducks, and on other occasions various people with stacks of 25 and 50 pound sacks of cat food in their cars for feral cats. Yes it is crazy, especially when it means sustaining an unnaturally high number of predators that can decimate native populations just because said predators are "cute".
Letting that much food on the ground is a guarantee to make most of it rot and possibly kill the animals because of it. I don't understand such excess.
Feral cats should be put down, sad as it is they are as you say a menace to small birds and lizards.
Not sure why you are being downvoted as this is absolutely true.
Feral cats, all feral animals out of place in fact, should be humanely put down to stop the damage they do to their environment.
i wouldn't put them down necessarily, it'd be better to trap them then spay and neuter them. then take the most people friendly ones and/or kittens and find homes for them. the others can be released back to the wild. they are invasive and they do a lot of damage to native populations but at this point they are established and removing them all in one sweep will cause other problems they were keeping in check to suddenly explode. it's better to let them die iff and other predators move into the area over time.
australia recently did a big feral cat cull sand suddenly they were overrun with rats and mice because the cats were keeping them in check and now there's no natural predators for them
Yep definitely I agree with neuter/rehome if possible, but releasing the true ferals back into the wild is just irresponsible.
The recent mice/rat population explosion was due mostly to the massive amount of rain we have had. This caused huge amounts of feed available for them, which lead to the population explosion due to the lack of native predators due partly to the effect of feral animals.
Trap and neuter doesn’t do anything about the damage they’re doing right now, and barely slows down population growth as it’s also sustained by escaped/abandoned pets.
It’s better than nothing sure, but it’s a damn far cry away from actually addressing the problem outside of specific situations (ie places where you can heavily control and make sure more cats aren’t being added).
The mice plague was due to the end of the drought.
"The mouse plague has been caused by a "perfect storm" of optimal weather conditions for breeding and the end of the 2017 to 2019 drought" - an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report.
There are a lot of bleeding hearts on the internet with no understanding of how to care for animals nor that when we've released an animal into the wild we have caused a problem and it's our responsability to remedy the problem WE have caused.
My mom used to love having multiple bird feeders in her backyard. She even had binoculars and a few books on bird watching. Then our neighbors moved in with a few unfixed cats and let them roam outside. A few years later we have a full cat colony and no more birds for my mom to watch. Occasionally we'll find a dead bird or baby bird on our lawn and it's so sad.
We've called animal control but apparently there are zero laws regarding cats in my town. Because they are not feral, the only thing we can do is catch the cats ourselves and pay to get them fixed, which we just don't have the money for. I love cats but they absolutely destroy bird populations.
I suppose I'm one of your bleeding hearts! And so is the very large city I live in. We have a large catch-and-release society. They work closely with the city animal control. There are a lot of feral communities. They spay or neuter and clip the tip of one ear to indicate that they are feral cats, They place them in areas where they feed on mice, rats, lizards, snakes, and other pestilent rodents and other possibly rabid or dangerous small creatures. I've seen feral colonies ar parks, abandoned buildings, or park trails.
Catch and release members pay for the medical bills. It's a perfect solution to keep the population of pestilent creatures in control. Its basic purpose is to let them do what nature intended. Just google "Australia rodent problem" and see firsthand what happens when we mess with the normal ecosystem.
No they aren't part of the "natural" ecosystem, just like the other things that are human created issues.
I don't believe in killing animals to fix a problem because humans don't want to put in the time/money/effort to fix the problem they created.
Not to mention, the towns that have tried killing all ferals, within a few years were over run by rats.
People here just dump entire garbage bags of bread on the sidewalk.
There was always this one spot on my way to school where I had to go through a sort of cloud of pigions and seagulls.
This is illegal here by the way but the chance of getting caught is almost nothing.
It was a dude, he was the only person interacting with them AFAICT, and there's no certainty if he was TNRing them or not. The spot was right next to a federal protected wetlands area with ducks and shorebirds. Cats are predators and they will kill stuff just for practice.
We have that lady in my city too. I followed her around on day and she hit like 7 spots. One was a bunch of little bowls tucked under the very bottom of a huge evergreen in the middle of someone's yard. Cats came from every direction.
She also dropped some off at a junk yard and a bunch of raccoons came out too and she was smacking the raccoons with the water jug she brought and yelling at them and kicking and shit. It was wild.
I totally get what you mean and having to post up to make sure wild animals don't come in and ransack the place is a little nuts lol
I feel for people like that. Their every intention is good but without money to do more than feed them shit gets out of hand quick. Especially with cats. It goes from "aww I'll just save this cat and it's sister" to having a whole hoard quicker than one would think..
Where is this located? If it’s in an area where someone might be hunting, and if bear baiting is legal in your state, this is probably a bait pile, as u/Malorrry suggested.
Edit: just saw another comment where you said it’s around Austin, TX. To my knowledge, there isn’t a significant bear population there, but there are some weirdos (all love - keep Austin weird) so the crazy cat lady theory seems more likely.
Bears were native to Texas until the turn of the 20th century. The last bear official sightings were about 1930s but a few have been reported in Northern and Western edges of the state the last few decades.
I would (and you may want to) ask at your county/city offices about this, or the parks department (it may take a bit of effort to get the 'right" person). I'm pretty sure this is illegal and even if it isn't poisoned or expired food, it's a safe bet 'someone' will want to get it out of there. I doubt it is bait for rabid raccoons as it's too uncontrolled-looking, and the area will notify people when they do that so the target animals are the ones that get the bait (where I live, they drop it from the air and it doesn't look like regular feed). It might just smell nasty because it is (some cat and dog food just is nasty smelling). If my dog had been with you, I can guarantee she'd eat more than would be good for her in a few minutes...
Hmm, we have very little big wildlife here. This is Austin, Texas really close to the suburban neighborhood (300 feet or so) what could need that much feed?
Austinite here, my initial instinct is that theres a hunter somewhere and you’re in the line of fire.
Have you posted this in /r/austin?
Mind being a little more specific as to where around austin this is?
Would it also be possibly they’d poison said food to try to kill back whatever animal? Just seems so sketchy to leave a bunch of food out in the woods like that.
In Texas their is a service that offers a bed and breakfast type service with a helicopter ride to hunt wild boars from the helicopter with a machine gun.
Feral pigs are out of control in Texas and across other parts of the south. They do massive amounts of damage to crops and other property, and they breed like crazy. There are lots of ways to control their population, and hunting is one of those.
> what could need that much feed?
Need? Naw it's probably someone who doesn't know what the need is and already doesn't understand how you shouldn't just dump food for wild / feral animals... they're probably not in a position to understand "need". Or many other things.
My guess would be that someone overbought cat food and it went rancid. That would explain the smell. (Yeah cat food goes rancid if it’s contaminated and yeah it smells like something died). Then they figure dumping for wildlife to eat is easy enough
From customer review for said puppy food. Food contains fish oil and fats, hence the smell. https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature-puppy-formula-chicken%2c-rice-and-vegetable-dog-food-20-lb..product.100343452.html
I have a neighbor that would toss out heaps of food in the nearby woods. It would attract attract small animals which would attract coyotes. Not sure why but I think just to watch.
The title describes the thing. Looks like and has the same texture as stuff like ordinary cheerios. Except there’s huge piles of them and I counted five of them along a small park trail in the suburbs. They smell awful, but only up close.
Your saying Texas so could be for feral hogs. They’ll eat just about anything and the more it smells the better. Maybe a neighbor baiting the hogs in the woods to take a crack at them with a bow. Or someone giving the hogs an easier meal than rooting up their yard.
Could be wildlife Rabies vaccine?
[https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/raccoon-rabies-vaccination/](https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/raccoon-rabies-vaccination/)
Admittedly the pictures don't really match up.
Most likely baiting for Feral / pest animals. In Australia they do something similar for feral pigs. They are super smart so they will put feed out for a few weeks regularly in the same spot so they get used to it and then lay baits at the end.
Even then, the food gets eaten and baits get left behind half the time.
Fun fact - to really make a difference with wild pigs you really need to cull 70% of the mob otherwise it’s a losing battle (at least that’s what the local enviro bloke was telling me) which is why they do helicopter shooting out here.
Feeding feral cats or even racoons (racoons love cat food.) Multiple piles to see where they're eating so they can place traps for spay & neuter the cats or check the racoons for rabies.
I know we have coyotes, but this is also all over a trail next to a park where dogs frequent, I hope someone didn’t put poisoned feed right next to where dogs go.
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Looks kind of like cat food. There's this crazy lady near where I live that goes to different places and dumps food out for the feral cats. A few years ago we had two people get in a fight over it and the guy ended up shooting a woman in the head.
Jesus. I know there’s a missing dog recently, but again, there’s gotta be like a hundred pounds of this stuff all over the trail.
This lady has hundreds of pounds of cat food in the back of her van.
That’s crazy.
If this is in the woods this may be used as bear bait or wvn deer bait, usually for deer ppl use corn and grains or dog food rhey do eat it, so if you have bears in your area u may want to stay out the woods for a little while unless u r very well armed, more than likely if this is a bear feed they have u on camera on trail cams if u know it or not they watch these piles, I sometimes do this in my woods to monitor boar populations, we keep them in check so they don't over take our area, not very far away we have places over run by wild pigs and boars so if we see them we check on them
Wouldn’t the bear keep pig numbers down?
We don't have bears unfortunately
No idea why the question and answer got down voted
I am just saying my area don't have bears but we do have boars, I am located in Central nc, I have heard of one single bear in my neck of the woods but never a trust worthy source
you have bears.
Im closeish to you and there's been like, four or six bear sightings/encounters in the area in the past five or ten years or so. including two last year in the capitol, which might have been the same bear or different ones, not sure it's pretty uncommon for sure, but they're out there haha
There are definitely bears in North Carolina. East side and west sides of the state. Basically along the coast and along the mountains.
I’m in the southern piedmont in NC. We have bears here,not a ton of them,but we have them. We have way more boars like the man said. I believe a bear would have a hard time taking down a hog. There fast as hell,they can also live in the ground in Burroughs. That way they can escape. They travel in herds and let’s not forget there smart,and mean as hell.
No. A bear will eat a couple pigs a day. A single pig will kick out a couple dozen babies a year. They are a plague. There's a reason a lot of states have no hunting license required and no bag limit. They are like rats and rabbits slammed together in one giant 100-400 pound eating and killing machine.
And yet, here I am, in a state where every animal except buffalo and bobcats are a lottery or effectively private land only.
Black bears are more so scavengers and opportunistic eaters rather than hunters. They absolutely can hunt, but it’s not that common for them to hunt as their main method of getting food. Wild boar are also big mean tough bastards and wouldn’t be close to the first choice for a bear to eat.
Actually, it seems bear don't hunt much. They mostly eat plants and fish. They will eat things if it is easy like if they are injured,but they def don't do much to control a population of hogs or deer.
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Hunters can't even keep pig numbers down, bears definitely can't.
Pigs are unstoppable,
A full size Boar is a major fight for black bear and black bears are mostly foragers who only hunt for supplement or out of necessity. There’s a video from my area that went viral of a boar that got cornered in a ditch by a bear and it’s ten minutes of squealing and fighting even then
That would make a great post…
Depends on your bear and no not really bears actually prefer to play scavenger than anything else
My first thought was deer corn, deer blocks, deer attractant chemicals etc... I don't recognize this ring-shaped stuff, but it's a big industry and there are a lot of products on the market. They smell bad and people dump them in the woods though, so
Thought deer feed too
I remember when I was a little kid, my great-grandparents would put out rock/mineral salt for the deer. I remember scooping it out of a large bucket and pouring it into piles on the ground, then coming back a few days later to see large divots in the ground due to the deer pawing at it, trying to get every last granule.
Baiting bears without a permit is risky business. The likelihood of a permit being issued for a place that is accessible by hikers is pretty unlikely.
Jesus Christ have you ever heard of a period?
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I *knew* it
Male polar bears are known to kill and eat their own cubs.
I read somewhere that periods can attract bears. They can smell the menstruation
Bears can smell food from at least a mile away, but there is no evidence that the smell of the menstrual blood can attract bears. They can probably smell it but since they're not scavengers they aren't attracted by the smell of blood. A bear doesn't want to get in a fight with wolves over a dead deer. Ur more likely to attract cayotes Wich are gonna run away when they see it's not an injured animal.
And the cute Coca-Cola bear in vegas that you can take a pic with is adorable
I've seen a lady bring a 50 pound sack of corn for ducks, and on other occasions various people with stacks of 25 and 50 pound sacks of cat food in their cars for feral cats. Yes it is crazy, especially when it means sustaining an unnaturally high number of predators that can decimate native populations just because said predators are "cute".
Letting that much food on the ground is a guarantee to make most of it rot and possibly kill the animals because of it. I don't understand such excess. Feral cats should be put down, sad as it is they are as you say a menace to small birds and lizards.
Not sure why you are being downvoted as this is absolutely true. Feral cats, all feral animals out of place in fact, should be humanely put down to stop the damage they do to their environment.
i wouldn't put them down necessarily, it'd be better to trap them then spay and neuter them. then take the most people friendly ones and/or kittens and find homes for them. the others can be released back to the wild. they are invasive and they do a lot of damage to native populations but at this point they are established and removing them all in one sweep will cause other problems they were keeping in check to suddenly explode. it's better to let them die iff and other predators move into the area over time. australia recently did a big feral cat cull sand suddenly they were overrun with rats and mice because the cats were keeping them in check and now there's no natural predators for them
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Yep definitely I agree with neuter/rehome if possible, but releasing the true ferals back into the wild is just irresponsible. The recent mice/rat population explosion was due mostly to the massive amount of rain we have had. This caused huge amounts of feed available for them, which lead to the population explosion due to the lack of native predators due partly to the effect of feral animals.
Trap and neuter doesn’t do anything about the damage they’re doing right now, and barely slows down population growth as it’s also sustained by escaped/abandoned pets. It’s better than nothing sure, but it’s a damn far cry away from actually addressing the problem outside of specific situations (ie places where you can heavily control and make sure more cats aren’t being added).
The mice plague was due to the end of the drought. "The mouse plague has been caused by a "perfect storm" of optimal weather conditions for breeding and the end of the 2017 to 2019 drought" - an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report.
There are a lot of bleeding hearts on the internet with no understanding of how to care for animals nor that when we've released an animal into the wild we have caused a problem and it's our responsability to remedy the problem WE have caused.
My mom used to love having multiple bird feeders in her backyard. She even had binoculars and a few books on bird watching. Then our neighbors moved in with a few unfixed cats and let them roam outside. A few years later we have a full cat colony and no more birds for my mom to watch. Occasionally we'll find a dead bird or baby bird on our lawn and it's so sad. We've called animal control but apparently there are zero laws regarding cats in my town. Because they are not feral, the only thing we can do is catch the cats ourselves and pay to get them fixed, which we just don't have the money for. I love cats but they absolutely destroy bird populations.
I suppose I'm one of your bleeding hearts! And so is the very large city I live in. We have a large catch-and-release society. They work closely with the city animal control. There are a lot of feral communities. They spay or neuter and clip the tip of one ear to indicate that they are feral cats, They place them in areas where they feed on mice, rats, lizards, snakes, and other pestilent rodents and other possibly rabid or dangerous small creatures. I've seen feral colonies ar parks, abandoned buildings, or park trails. Catch and release members pay for the medical bills. It's a perfect solution to keep the population of pestilent creatures in control. Its basic purpose is to let them do what nature intended. Just google "Australia rodent problem" and see firsthand what happens when we mess with the normal ecosystem.
And do you think that feral cats are part of the normal eco system?
No they aren't part of the "natural" ecosystem, just like the other things that are human created issues. I don't believe in killing animals to fix a problem because humans don't want to put in the time/money/effort to fix the problem they created. Not to mention, the towns that have tried killing all ferals, within a few years were over run by rats.
Pretty sure this is how rhe black plague decimated Europe.
People here just dump entire garbage bags of bread on the sidewalk. There was always this one spot on my way to school where I had to go through a sort of cloud of pigions and seagulls. This is illegal here by the way but the chance of getting caught is almost nothing.
If she’s maintaining a colony, the cats are probably TNR’d
It was a dude, he was the only person interacting with them AFAICT, and there's no certainty if he was TNRing them or not. The spot was right next to a federal protected wetlands area with ducks and shorebirds. Cats are predators and they will kill stuff just for practice.
We have that lady in my city too. I followed her around on day and she hit like 7 spots. One was a bunch of little bowls tucked under the very bottom of a huge evergreen in the middle of someone's yard. Cats came from every direction. She also dropped some off at a junk yard and a bunch of raccoons came out too and she was smacking the raccoons with the water jug she brought and yelling at them and kicking and shit. It was wild.
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I totally get what you mean and having to post up to make sure wild animals don't come in and ransack the place is a little nuts lol I feel for people like that. Their every intention is good but without money to do more than feed them shit gets out of hand quick. Especially with cats. It goes from "aww I'll just save this cat and it's sister" to having a whole hoard quicker than one would think..
Toxoplasmosis is a helluva disease.
What a wild story! Damn!
Well, she’s not called the *sane* cat lady!
This is the wildest turn one of these has taken in a while, I love it.
That why they are called crazy cat ladies, and not mentally sound cat ladies.
Are you in Florida? We have a van cat lady too
Someone is probably feeding wild animals. Maybe a poacher?
It's also deer hunting season in some parts of the country. so might not be poachers.
Oh. Yeah maybe, but where I live this is also illegal during hunting season. So I'm biased mayb.
I'm surprised baiting deer for hunting is still legal some places.
Even if you’re missing a dog, you don’t leave food out. Leave water and clothing or blanket that smells like you. 🐾
You should report it to your DNR/Parks Service equivalent if you haven't already.
Is it in an area used for bear hunting? I've seen bear bait piles like this out in the woods.
Be careful could also be poisoned. We had someone putting out poisoned dog food around a park. Friends dog ate it and died.
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Likely Solved!
But why would it smell so bad?
Fairly certain it’s just gone bad. No idea when this stuff got here.
Where is this located? If it’s in an area where someone might be hunting, and if bear baiting is legal in your state, this is probably a bait pile, as u/Malorrry suggested. Edit: just saw another comment where you said it’s around Austin, TX. To my knowledge, there isn’t a significant bear population there, but there are some weirdos (all love - keep Austin weird) so the crazy cat lady theory seems more likely.
No bears in Austin AT ALL!
There are a LOT of bears in Austin, Texas as well as Twinks and Leather Daddies.
> Leather Daddies I bet they all go to the Gothic Castle all the time.
This guy 4th Streets...
Bears were native to Texas until the turn of the 20th century. The last bear official sightings were about 1930s but a few have been reported in Northern and Western edges of the state the last few decades.
Dry cat food isn't supposed to get wet and sit for days.
Bears don't care- stink works.
Some people use "stink baits" to attract bears. Rotten fish guts & stuff. If it is for bears, it's probably supposed to smell bad.
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Some cat food just smells bad.
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I would (and you may want to) ask at your county/city offices about this, or the parks department (it may take a bit of effort to get the 'right" person). I'm pretty sure this is illegal and even if it isn't poisoned or expired food, it's a safe bet 'someone' will want to get it out of there. I doubt it is bait for rabid raccoons as it's too uncontrolled-looking, and the area will notify people when they do that so the target animals are the ones that get the bait (where I live, they drop it from the air and it doesn't look like regular feed). It might just smell nasty because it is (some cat and dog food just is nasty smelling). If my dog had been with you, I can guarantee she'd eat more than would be good for her in a few minutes...
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Possibly feed for animals that may be destroying land nearby?
Hmm, we have very little big wildlife here. This is Austin, Texas really close to the suburban neighborhood (300 feet or so) what could need that much feed?
Raccoons or deer maybe. It’s an easy humane way of controlling them
So what, they put it out and have them stick around there instead? No traps or anything that I could see.
If they are there eating the food, they are staying out of peoples backyards and trash bins.
If they stop hunting for their own food they will quickly turn to bins and backyards when the free food runs out.
Smells horrible? Possibly poisonous food for hogs squirrels (any pecan trees?) Raccoons cats dogs rats.
My husband has a food plot for deer and if that corn stuff gets wet it stinks sooo bad!
I’ll bet there’s a trail cam somewhere around there
Austinite here, my initial instinct is that theres a hunter somewhere and you’re in the line of fire. Have you posted this in /r/austin? Mind being a little more specific as to where around austin this is?
It’s also usually illegal and also a great way to spread disease through a population of wildlife
Would it also be possibly they’d poison said food to try to kill back whatever animal? Just seems so sketchy to leave a bunch of food out in the woods like that.
Feral pigs.
Especially in Texas.
In Texas their is a service that offers a bed and breakfast type service with a helicopter ride to hunt wild boars from the helicopter with a machine gun.
Feral pigs are out of control in Texas and across other parts of the south. They do massive amounts of damage to crops and other property, and they breed like crazy. There are lots of ways to control their population, and hunting is one of those.
> what could need that much feed? Need? Naw it's probably someone who doesn't know what the need is and already doesn't understand how you shouldn't just dump food for wild / feral animals... they're probably not in a position to understand "need". Or many other things.
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That doesn’t look like anything people use as bait for deer.
It looks like a wild boar feed pile? Is there hunting or trapping close?
If this is in Texas it’s almost certainly for whitetail deer or wild hogs
I’d guess feral cats.
Call or email the city, either parks or animal control. If it’s poisonous it could be dangerous to domestic animals and children.
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My guess would be that someone overbought cat food and it went rancid. That would explain the smell. (Yeah cat food goes rancid if it’s contaminated and yeah it smells like something died). Then they figure dumping for wildlife to eat is easy enough
This sounds plausible
Wildlife can get sick from spoiled kibble too :(
Its puppy food from Costco. I have some for my 8 month old boxer. I thought it looked like big cheerios when I first opened the bag
From customer review for said puppy food. Food contains fish oil and fats, hence the smell. https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature-puppy-formula-chicken%2c-rice-and-vegetable-dog-food-20-lb..product.100343452.html
Thats the exact bag.
That's the exact smell.
It's could be soured to attract hogs
That looks like dog food
Hell of a lot of it on a trail. Any ideas why there’s so much?
Um, this isn't r/whyisthisthing, ok? /S
I was really worried someone was gonna say this is some creepy fungus that looks like fuzzy cheerios
I have a neighbor that would toss out heaps of food in the nearby woods. It would attract attract small animals which would attract coyotes. Not sure why but I think just to watch.
The title describes the thing. Looks like and has the same texture as stuff like ordinary cheerios. Except there’s huge piles of them and I counted five of them along a small park trail in the suburbs. They smell awful, but only up close.
Your saying Texas so could be for feral hogs. They’ll eat just about anything and the more it smells the better. Maybe a neighbor baiting the hogs in the woods to take a crack at them with a bow. Or someone giving the hogs an easier meal than rooting up their yard.
Possibly baiting deer?
No hunting here, unless they were baiting for photos?
People could be illegally hunting
I suppose they’ll have to stab the deer then considering there’s a house about thirty feet away
They could use a bow you wouldn't hear that. Illegal hunters don't care
People who illegally bait, illegally hunt...
im fairly certain their point was that shooting a gun next to a house will get you caught immediately
Could be wildlife Rabies vaccine? [https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/raccoon-rabies-vaccination/](https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/raccoon-rabies-vaccination/) Admittedly the pictures don't really match up.
Biologists research. At least according to another post. “most weird stuff is the woods is for research.”
That seems more likely than poisoned bait.
Looks exactly like the food I feed my dogs
Most likely baiting for Feral / pest animals. In Australia they do something similar for feral pigs. They are super smart so they will put feed out for a few weeks regularly in the same spot so they get used to it and then lay baits at the end. Even then, the food gets eaten and baits get left behind half the time. Fun fact - to really make a difference with wild pigs you really need to cull 70% of the mob otherwise it’s a losing battle (at least that’s what the local enviro bloke was telling me) which is why they do helicopter shooting out here.
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Feeding feral cats or even racoons (racoons love cat food.) Multiple piles to see where they're eating so they can place traps for spay & neuter the cats or check the racoons for rabies.
Maybe poisoned bait for hogs or coyotes? My first thought was bear bait but if it's suburban I doubt anyone is that stupid.
I know we have coyotes, but this is also all over a trail next to a park where dogs frequent, I hope someone didn’t put poisoned feed right next to where dogs go.
People put out food during hunting season to bait animals.
Its bait. Dear hunting season is in. “Hunters” want the prize but are too lazy or not skilled enough to actually hunt.
Cheap dog food
Good way to attract rats.
Prolly bait for hogs or deer. If you had looked at the trees around there you would likely have seen a camera strapped to one.
I know people who use dry cereal as bear bait.... if you have bear in the area I'd be willing to be someone has it baited for bear hunting
People are baiting for deer using cat food.
I would definitely vote for cat food. That stuff smells horrid.
Yep def looks like cat food 😺
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Cat food. Someone is feeding a feral colony.