I’ve seen several documentaries dedicated to cattle mutilation and the theory presented is that some sort of alien may be responsible. It’s tough to take much of that very seriously, quite frankly. So when MonsterQuest presented an episode about livestock and dog killings, I was hopeful for a more level-headed approach. I think I got what I was looking for.
The show traveled to North Carolina, a state with a lot of swamps and wooded areas, home to a lot of creatures such as bobcats and black bears. Some fifty years ago, a number of people began losing livestock in one particular town in the southeastern part of the state. The newspapers created quite a hysteria judging by what I saw and it attracted hundreds of big-game hunters, looking to kill the creature responsible for the maulings.
Fifty years later, the killings have returned. Well, they never really stopped, but they seemed to have become more common now. Residents have been losing their goats and even their dogs.
The most disturbing thing in this epidemic of killings is the fact that the animals being killed aren’t being eaten. Their throats are slashed and they seem to either bleed to death or their oxygen supply is cut off (by the compression on the neck).
All of the local animals were looked at as possible threats, but none of them seemed to fit the bill of being the killer. The two most likely creatures were the coyote and the bobcat. But they’re really too small to kill the large pit bulls that were being killed off. A 40 pound bobcat wouldn’t be able to easily kill a 120 pound pit bull.
So experts in animal sounds were brought in and had two eyewitnesses listen to them. Of the thirteen sounds, the one selected was that of a tiger. I can’t say that I was surprised. I had a hunch that the killer, whatever it was, was of the large cat variety. All big cats make similar sounds to the untrained ear.
I was disappointed in that the female eyewitness didn’t specify a sound. She just said it was cat-like. Either they didn’t go through the entire 13 sound test like they did with the older gentleman, or she picked a different sound and the producers didn’t want to show that part. I can’t say for sure, but I understood that she thought the sound was cat-like. Fair enough.
MonsterQuest fans are accustomed to seeing experts placing camera traps in the field. They did that here too, and as usual, came up with nothing. Not a damn thing.
The necropsy performed on the pit bill was a smart thing to do. It helps add scientific credence to the show, but I can’t help but feel disappointed by the result. The vet couldn’t say which animal killed it, but she was confident that it wasn’t a domestic animal (another pit bull), but was an actual predator.
That went with what I was feeling. The idea of another pit bull doing the killings was pushed pretty hard by the narrator. A pit bull just didn’t seem to fit in my mind. The animals that were being killed seem to be dying quickly and quietly. Two big dogs going at it is going to be loud and violent.
The idea of a cougar (mountain lion, puma, panther) being the animal responsible did cross my mind about half-way through the show. As much as we’d like to think that some animals are no longer living in some areas of the country, nature seems to have a way of proving us wrong.
At the end of the show, the family that lost their pit bull received a photo of a cougar, taken by someone to allegedly puts the animal in the area. It’s a camera-phone photo, so it was a terrible picture, but it was obviously a cougar. The only thing to question is the location. The only area in the southeastern part of the U.S. that cougars are known to live is in southern Florida, but there have been a lot of reported sightings of these large, silent stalkers all along the eastern seaboard.
MonsterQuest couldn’t confirm the authenticity of the photo, but they didn’t need to in my mind. With or without the photo, I’m convinced a big cat is involved. I certainly don’t see a tiger or lion doing these, and the only thing remotely similar in the U.S. is the cougar. I don’t think it’s that big of a stretch to think the animal could get out of its known range.
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