I had a similar situation last weekend while three of us were hiking a section of the Ouachita Trail in AR. The evening of our first day we were visited by a deer hound that was on the brink of starvation. She had a tracking collar (likely dead, or she was out of range), a collar with the owner's name and number, which we called the next morning and left a message, and did not hear back from, she was also dye branded on back flank. We fed her tiny bits of food and water and when it came time to leave she wouldn't budge, not even when tempted with food. My heart was breaking, and one of the guys suggested her vital organs might have started shutting down. There was a FS road close by and we vowed to take turns carrying her til we got to the road, (healthy she would have weighed about 50 lbs but was half of that) then one would stay with her while the other two hiked to the car and returned later. One of us that lived in the area even knew someone with animal rescue that would likely hold on to her until the owners came or keep her outright. Well we had heard hunters a few minutes before and when we reached the crest of the hill above the road, we were changing guard and she scented the hunter's and or their dog/s and off she went down the mountain baying for all she was worth. She was soon far out of sight and we could hear her getting farther away. There was nothing we could do, and I just prayed she found salvation in those hunters, but I will never know. We tried to do what was right by her, and it still amazes me that no one called me back. My mistake, in hindsight was that I mentioned she was in bad shape. I think they decided she wasn't worth coming after. I'd like to think the reason they weren't answering their phone was because they were the hunters she ran to...but I'm too much of a realist to believe that fairy tale. I still see her, covered in ticks, limping on a bad leg, which made it impossible for her to hunt, with raw pads and chaffed skin....Maybe there was another side to the story...The saddest part was finding out another hiker on our local forum ran into a similar situation with the same outcome on the same trail. It's apparently not that uncommon.