Elliot In The Morning

EITM: Signing On 4/1/26

11 min
Apr 1, 202618 days ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Elliot discusses discovering a decapitated rabbit on a neighborhood soccer field with his co-host. After posting about the incident on Snapchat, callers help identify the likely culprit: owls, which are known to surgically remove animal heads to eat brains. The conversation explores wildlife behavior and includes caller anecdotes about similar owl attacks on chickens.

Insights
  • Owls are apex predators capable of precise, surgical decapitation with minimal blood loss to access nutrient-dense brain tissue
  • Wildlife behavior that appears unnatural or sinister (clean cuts, no blood) often has logical biological explanations rooted in predator feeding strategies
  • Community platforms like Snapchat and Next Door enable rapid crowdsourced problem-solving and wildlife identification
  • Public perception of wildlife (owls as cute) often conflicts with their actual predatory capabilities and danger to pets and livestock
Trends
Increased awareness of owl predation on domestic livestock and pets in suburban/rural areasUse of social media for wildlife incident reporting and community problem-solvingGrowing concern about wildlife management in residential neighborhoods with mixed land use
People
Jeff
Caller from rural area who identified owl as likely predator based on personal experience with wildlife
Darby
Suggested lawn mower as alternative explanation for rabbit decapitation based on field conditions
Quotes
"Owls will kill you. Like everybody's like, oh look, they're cute and fluffy and they're up in a tree. Owls, like in our old house, there was an owl that had perched up in the backyard in false church of all places. But it had perched up on a tree and I was terrified of the thing."
Elliot
"Owls will commonly remove the heads of animals to eat just the brains."
Jeff
"It was like a surgical cut, precise, no blood, nothing. All it did was eat the heads."
Caller (Yeli)
"Sharp talons, beaks."
Jeff
Full Transcript
I'm assuming you didn't see my video on Snapchat. No. But my daughter got back from a walk with a friend and told me they came across a headless rabbit. Ooh. I know, I know. Ooh. I don't like to be disturbed either sitting at the computer. No. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. And disturbed is the right word because I- Did she pick it up? No. Oh, okay. No. I immediately went serial killer in training. The- Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Not for her or her friend, but for whoever mutilated this buddy. How about just a, how about just like an animal in the neighborhood? No, no. It was decapitated. The description alone- But if I were a fox, wouldn't I just bite its head off? How big a rabbit is it? Now you sound like a lot of the replies on Snapchat. Yeah, like that to me makes total sense. But I just- Don't you say you have coyotes in your neighborhood? Had to go and find it myself. Wait, so you went and got the rabbit? Did you pick it up? No. No, that's what I told my whole family that I was dealing with it in case a young child came across it. I didn't want them to get sick. Oh, Jesus, age, Christ. Really, I was trying to see if we had a sick young child. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So, my first mistake was relying on my daughter for telling me where it was. Oh, wait, so you couldn't find it? Was it just out in the street? No, it was down by- We have a soccer field that's set back way in the neighborhood and there's a walkway that goes around it. Oh, that's nice. She told me it was near the far end. And I thought she meant on the path. Like, so you could see it a few feet from the path. Oh, no, when I call, I forgot that we walked onto- She didn't say pitch, but I would prefer her to say that. Onto the pitch to look for flowers and then we saw it. Oh, wait, so it's just laying dead in the field? Yeah, some people- So that's where the coyote got it. Some people do let their dogs run off leash there. Right. So you worry about that too. It's one thing to eat rabbit poop, but you don't want them maybe gnawing at a dead rabbit. Now, I will say this. I expected something that maybe had been gnawed at by other animals. The condition of this almost looked like it was ready to wear. Like it was perfect. Wait, the decapitation was? Minus the head. The, wait, so there was no blood on the rabbit? No, no, no, it was- You know what you got there? Serial killer with a knife. Oh, look, someone's back on my theory. No, because if a rabbit, if an animal tore into it, do you have a picture of it? Yeah, it's on the video, but I did take a still shot of it. Please. There you go. See his little legs? I'm gonna blow it up a little bit. No, you can't. Yeah, I can. I just did. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, you're in Instagram. Oh, yeah, no, I thought you said you took a still shot. Okay, then let me go back to the, come on. Then I'd like to scroll through the rest of the photos. Let me see where the head is. It's nowhere to be found. Dude, that's clean. Yes. That's clean. Ew, and look how it's just laying there. It almost looks like it put its head in the sand. I can't take this anymore. Look me up when it's over. So that head is gone. You know what, good on your daughter for seeing that. I don't even know that I'd see that. And then you went and found it. You walk right by it. It's kinda obvious. So- Dude, that head is gone. I know, I know. And there's no blood. How's there no blood? Rabbits got blood, right? Yeah. Rabbits have blood. I know, thank you, Kristen. So then, and I had said in the video, I had said, is this something that would happen or occur in nature? Or- Oh, it just, its head falls off? No, I meant more. I gave a predator a chance to tell his or her side of the story, but I really thought next door should know about it. You posted that on next door? No, because- Because I had Lindsay do it. No, because the listeners did say it was a hawk. The, oh, that ate it? Oh, wait, hold on one second. Line one, hold on one second. Hi, Elliot, the morning. Hi, yeah, this is Jeff in Love It's Built. So I live out in the country and owls will commonly remove the heads of animals to eat just the brains. Dude. Zombie owls. No, I'm telling you owls. Owls are scary animals. Owls will kill you. Like everybody's like, oh look, they're cute and fluffy and they're up in a tree. Owls, like in our old house, there was an owl that had perched up in the backyard in false church of all places. But it had perched up on a tree and I was terrified of the thing. I hate wildlife to begin with, but terrified owls will shred you and rip you to pieces. So an owl will find like a small animal and rip their heads off just to eat the brains? Yeah, we used to think it was our neighbor's cats, but then we talked to a wildlife rescue out by us and they said that it's the owl. Can I ask you this though? How did they get the head off so clean? Sharp talons, beaks. But wouldn't it leave some blood? Like there's no blood. You know what this reminds me of? Do you remember the mystery where there was like a dozen horses that were killed out in like some pasture or something and they were all killed, they were all gutted and there wasn't a drop of blood to be found? I do, yeah. Same thing. Well, except this is one small, very small rabbit. Yeah, but should I? Should I? Should I? I just posted a story. Should I have tagged NASA and warn the Artemis two crew? I didn't know that though. I didn't know that owls will rip apart animals just to eat their brains. I had no idea. Apparently brains are dense and nutrients. The, you know, it is the fattiest organ in my body. I learned that the other day. All right, very good, very good. Thank you. Yes, sir. But that's exactly why dogs sniff out rabbit poop is it's undigested nutrients. Yeah, but it's rich in food. This is like the gift that keeps on giving. The head to. Well, there's no head. Line two. Hi, Elliot the morning. Hi, is this me? Yeah, hi, who's this? This is Darby. I was just wondering if you've considered maybe it was hit by a lawn mower? Oh, that's a great, that's a great pot. It's on a soccer field. Yeah, but look at this grass. You know what? You're right, that was a mode. Yeah, the grass was pretty high. That's not a, that's not a freshly mowed field. The grass was so high and not just from this photo, but I even commented to myself. Thank you, ma'am. Since I left the house in such a panic, I had crocs on, which I don't wear in public. Dude, how embarrassed were you? And I could feel the blades on my ankle. I didn't, I didn't love it. I didn't love it. Did that get posted on Next Door that you were out in public in Crocs? No, my parallel parking job, if it was filmed, it could have been shared. Right up on that curb. I was, I was hot. I honestly, I thought, I thought there were. What were you so concerned about? Where this person would strike next. The, hi, Yeli, in the morning. Hey, quick side question. Why, yeah, I just can't hear the ding. I don't know why the last caller was like, is this me? I definitely heard the ding. Okay. Anyway, so a few months ago, an hour, well, they don't know what it was, but someone said it was an owl, broke it, somehow got into my girlfriend's chicken coop, ripped the heads off of all the chickens, fixed chickens. It was like a surgical cut, precise, no blood, nothing. All it did was eat the heads. So yeah, it's wild. So the, and so when you, when your girlfriend got into the coop, all like the heads were gone. Like there was no beaks, nothing laying around. Just the heads were gone, but it was a clean cut. Yeah. I mean, well, I was there, but yeah, it was, it freaked me out. Cause I mean, it looked like, yeah, it was wild. The heads were clean cut, no blood. That was the only thing that was missing. Was there a way, was there a way that the owl could have gotten in? Like, is it an open top coop? I don't know what you call it. No, that's the thing. That's the thing is like, there's a little crack where the top meets the side, but it wasn't like, you know, like it, it wasn't, I don't know, you couldn't see it. It wasn't big enough to see for distance or anything like that. So yeah, it was wild. That's nasty. By the way, is that a thank you, sir? Did we just learn something about owls? That they just take you, they will just surgically remove the head. And you definitely in the past have told us to be, not afraid of owls. Owls will pick your eyes out. Like they're aware of owls. Yes. But this is a whole nother level of frighten. And the rabbits just kind of split in there on the grass. It wishes, it was just cooling off. So did you pick it up? No. Like in a bag or with a shovel? You sound like my feeling when I got it back, who thought I was going to take care of it. Well, but I thought if you were worried about dogs or other kids that you would have like, No, that was my story. I didn't want to tell them what I really thought was going on. Oh, so you just didn't want to say you think you've got a a progressing serial killer in the making? One of your classmates is a psychopath. I didn't want to say that until I investigated. You know what you could have done though? Right here. You could have right here. You could have made a nice sharp cut. Touch a key ring to it and that's good luck. You had one of those. Oh, 100%. I had a blue one. Not natural. Not natural. That was died. Happy Easter.