THE SOUND of coyotes yelping outside his home on Martin Road near Flanders Mansion roused Vaughn McIlrath from the DVD he and his wife were watching a couple of nights after Christmas, but after he went out his back door and yelled at them, the coyotes stopped and he went back inside.

The next morning, however, he discovered the gruesome carcass of a deer which had been torn apart and eaten, with two large pieces left about 50 feet from each other in a neighbor’s backyard.

“I noticed a turkey vulture, and a carcass. There was the front portion, and it was out in the open,” he said. “And then I went over to where the noise had been coming from, and lo and behold, there’s the back portion of the critter. There were vultures all over the place, so I could tell something was up.”

McIlrath suspected the coyotes had been celebrating their kill, but he later learned it would take a much stronger creature to tear the deer into pieces, such as a mountain lion.

“My chiropractor tells me that it would take considerable force to sever the spinal column,” he said.

Mountain lions — though elusive, nocturnal and solitary — are regularly spotted in the more rural parts of the Monterey Peninsula, such as Pescadero Canyon, Hatton Canyon, Carmel Valley and down the coast.

After another day of watching wildlife pick at the carcass, and having been unable to rouse any law enforcement officials to deal with it, he dragged the dead deer into the Mission Trail Nature Preserve, about 100 feet away.

“Saturday morning, we’re still watching all these critters tearing this thing apart, so it occurred to me I could drag it into the park, and then someone would take care of it,” he said. “It was amazing how lightweight it was by the time I did that. It’s really interesting watching nature.”

That day, Dec. 29, 2012, at about 2:20 p.m., someone notified Carmel P.D. of the carcass, and an officer went to check it out. After learning from another resident that the deer had been in one of the neighbor’s backyards the previous day, the officer alerted the California Department of Fish & Game, but the warden who responded could not determine what killed the deer, “other than that it was eaten by wildlife.”

As a precaution, Carmel P.D. posted notices in the Mission Trail area “for the public to be aware and report any wildlife sightings, such as coyotes or mountain lions.”

McIlrath has yet to glimpse one of the big cats, though he’s seen what he’s certain was a paw print from one, and he’s exercising more caution, especially when letting his two little poodles out.

“We used to let our dogs run in the park,” he said. “I don’t do that anymore.”