What wpupd decapitate a duck but not eat the duck?

Was on my lake today and found a dead floating duck. As i got up to it i saw it was decapitated but nothing else missing off its body.

What would do that? And why?

power lines

None anywhere close. Closest power line is over half a mile from the lake

My ex wife would be a solid suspect!! In seriousness I’d say a hawk or owl, possibly a raccoon but they generally eat everything. We had a lake with resident owls and they loved chewing the heads off and leaving the rest.

Any type of raptor will do this. Super fast fly by and rip the head right off. I see it pretty frequently here on Whitney.

Possibly a turtle. Duck head being submerged would make a tasty morsel.

I’d say turtle also. Seen it quite a bit when killing ducks over ponds and picking them up after the hunt.

Hawks usually kill their prey by biting the neck , often with the head coming off.

I support the "dead duck- feeding turtle" theory.

Those power line turtles are dangerous

A house cat.

Skunk

There's a wolverine loose -- near Portland, Oregon ...

Crazy that the predator would go to the trouble of killing its prey than not eating it unless something spooked the predator off right after it killed the duck?

Owls almost always eat the head first

great horned owl

Googling the topic came up with a lot of interesting results...
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=what+decapitates+ducks#ip=1

Good stuff guys, thanks. I dont know much about fowl or waterfowl so this was a new one to me. I know we have a lot of raptors and owls in this area, so i would guess that is prob number 1. We do have some thrtles in the lake so that could be a number 2, though the turtles are almost all painted box turtles and i have not seen a snapping turtle yet, but i suppose they could be there.

Opossums get in your chicken coup they will do that. Seems like a waste but they will kill several in a night by chewing heads only. A duck seems more likely dead duck hungry turtle...

Chupacabra. Clearly.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CmwT9dUJMY4/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Next door neighbor kid with some .22 hollow points! Maybe you drove up before he was able to retrieve.

I’ve seen lots of young hawks, could be that.

Hawks. I've watched them do it.

I was duck hunting with the late great JJ Kent and we watched one pick up a decoy and fly away with it. He got pics of the sequence.

Bet that one didn't eat well.

We had a hawk try to take a decoy. It was to heavy for him to get airborne. He fought to take it for about 15 minutes before he gave up.