I am normally the first to scream "foul" on a hoaxed photo. I tore this series of photos apart with some of the best software available. Looking at these photos pixel by pixel enlarged to 1500 percent and running a color analysis on each pixel a enhancement would most likely show. They are scans of probably some older photo's, maybe even from a instamatic camera. But this bear deer confrontation took place and some lucky soul was there with a camera and archived the incident. Or at least that's my opinion. These are much like the cat/mule series, although there is nothing that would make be believe the cat was alive before the mule got a hold of it. I think the mule was just confirming the cat was dead after whom ever had shot it brought the cat with in reach of the mule. I have been to a couple of bear parks where you pay a few bucks to drive through and see the bears. It could be this was a captive bear and the deer had jumped a fence. Some one may have followed it around with a camera knowing some sort of incident was sure to happen, but that's total speculation on my part. It also would not discount the validity of the confrontation. The deer does not appear to be dead in the last frame, so he may have fled the fight after all.
I have seen a few oddities in nature myself while out and about. I once saw a cow elk on a steep snow slide milling about feeding and just up and fell down and busted her ass. She rolled over a hundred yards down the slide. When she got up she was limping horribly as she left. As far as enhancing photos goes I have taken notice of a couple photos of deer posted here that have been re-touched. The adding of weight and length to those tines is rather easily detected. You gotta watch it when you do that or some jerk like me with nothing to do all day might tear your photo apart and expose your antics one day in open forum.
Thanks for the post KW, it's truly an interesting series.
~Jeff~