Cattle
Mutilations: Predator Kills ± the Vulture Factor
The mystery of what causes
the killing and mutilation of cattle in the United States
It is impossible to prove a
negative and to completely refute any of these explanations for US cattle
mutilations but I do suggest that, if any of them are true, they only
constitute a small fraction of the huge number of mutilations which have been found
over the years. There is abundant
evidence that the vast majority of US cattle mutilations are perpetrated by
avian scavengers –principally vultures—and/or predators, such as coyotes or
mountain lions that may have attacked and killed some of the cattle in the
first place.
One reason that there has
been this widespread failure to understand the mutilation mystery is the persistent
fallacy that whatever killed the wretched cow must have also inflicted the
mutilations on it. That is simply not
necessarily true. An animal may have
died or been killed in a whole number of different ways ranging from natural causes,
disease, predator attack, or even being shot dead by some unknown person with a
rifle. If its carcass is left out on the
open range or in some remote pasture for any length of time, vultures, and/or
other scavengers, will soon be along to feast on it.
Coyotes, wolves, mountain
lions and other predatory mammals like to eat fresh meat that they have killed
themselves. Nevertheless they also
scavenge and will devour prey other than their own given the opportunity. Every carnivorous mammal out there is
thinking about the next meal and, as with humans, beef is often #1 choice on
the menu. A story from a friend of mine,
Mark Young, illustrates this hunger for beef.
Back in 2002 he was out alone in Beaver
Basin in the La Sal Mountains near Moab
As an historic note to the
cattle mutilation mystery there was a 1984 TV series on NBC called V. This was a
lavish science fiction production about an alien invasion of Earth by a
carnivorous race of reptilians known as the Visitors. Their reason for coming
here in their huge spaceships was to eat human beings. Clearly the idea of anthropophagous aliens must
have entered the psyche of some folk who were fascinated the UFO mystery back
then. When AFOSI’s Richard Doty, who was
based at Kirtland AFB, NM, started giving Linda Howe and other researchers disinformation
about UFOs in 1983, he claimed that the US
Meat
The average age at which beef
cattle in the US US America think “meat” --or even if they salivate
at the thought that those cows are, primarily, one of America
Be that as it may, other eyes
are sometimes watching those cattle and they certainly have food in mind. Turkey vultures wheeling in the sky above and
coyotes down below may well both be thinking to themselves “meat”. Of course they will all eat other meat such as
lamb but --for many scavengers and predators alike -- beef is often the food of
choice. Besides scavengers, in some
parts of America
To put the cattle mutilation mystery into
perspective one should consider roughly how many mutilated cattle carcasses are
actually discovered in the US
The total number of live
cattle and calves in the US
During the 1970s and 1980s
there was some evidence that cattle in remote parts of New
Mexico or Colorado
The fact is that most cattle
carcasses left out on the open range for any length of time will receive
mutilations. It is mostly done by
vultures and/or other scavengers and it will obviously depend on the presence
of such scavengers in the area and what opportunity they get to feed on the
carcass. It might also depend on the
time of year. Some farmers and ranchers
are quick to dispose of carcasses by burning or burying them in which case
there may be no mutilations, but others leave their dead cattle out in the open
and some form of mutilation will usually occur.
The vast majority of cattle
mutilations probably go unreported by farmers and ranchers. If they have an idea of what killed their
animals many would regard the mutilation of the carcasses as natural and
concede it was the work of predators and/or scavengers. Most cattle mutilations we get to hear about
are usually those where there has been an outbreak of cases in some location in
which such UCDs were not previously occurring.
The real mystery then is what caused the cows to die rather than the mutilation
marks which could be unconnected with whatever actually killed the cattle.
Most of us forget that nearly
every single cow out of roughly 90 million alive in the US today will, during
the next year or two, be sent to slaughterhouses, killed, dismembered –mutilated
in other words-- and then processed into various beef products that will appear
in supermarkets and restaurants all over the country. That should give one a little more
perspective on the US
Three different kinds of cattle mutilation
There are three distinct
kinds of cattle mutilation which I will call Types A, B, and C. Unless one looks very carefully at how a
carcass has been mutilated it is difficult, perhaps almost impossible, to distinguish
between these. An additional
complication is that more than one type of mutilation damage may be present on
the same carcass.
Type A mutilations are done
by carnivorous avian scavengers including vultures, hawks, and eagles. These birds
all have claws or talons and strong hooked beaks with which they can tear meat
from a carcass. Crows, ravens, and
magpies also feed on carrion. Vultures will peck out eyes and/or remove organs
from a dead animal. Typically a group of vultures will feed together on a dead cow,
perhaps with one pulling on the tongue while the others pick at it using their sharp
beaks. Vultures often start by eating
the soft tissues and sometimes manage to pull out intestines and other internal
organs. To do this they will even insert
their head into a dead cow’s anus or peck through the abdominal wall where the
animal’s hide is thinnest.
Type B mutilations are done
by carnivorous predatory mammals and scavengers which have teeth. If the
mammals are canines such as coyotes or wolves they will tear at the flesh and
can chew on bones with considerable force.
A coyote can bite with a force of about 150 pounds and wolves can bite
with three times that strength. Mountain lions also attack and kill cattle and
all of these predators can leave tooth marks on a dead animal’s bones. Carnivorous mammals usually prefer to eat the
flesh and chew on the bones of their victims rather than the soft tissue that
avian scavengers start by devouring.
Type C mutilations are those done
by human beings using instruments such as sharp knives, machetes, scalpels,
scissors, or possibly laser cutting tools.
It is alleged by some that extraterrestrials, MIBHs, and paranormal creatures
from other dimensions use similar instruments and hi-tech equipment like this to
perform whatever butchery they require.
In any case the results are said to show “surgical precision” and sometimes,
allegedly, microscopic effects on the flesh “that could only have been produced
by high heat or lasers”.
Undoubtedly there are Type C mutilation
cases where humans have performed some kind of butchery --perhaps even surgery--
on carcasses. However, few cases are reported where that can be said with much
certainty and many claims of “incisions made with surgical precision” really
belong in the Type A category. Whereas
Type Bs are often ragged and messy with spillage of blood, Type As can often appear
fairly neat and precise with little if any exsanguination.
Needless to say that the longer a carcass has been
dead the harder it becomes to distinguish between the different types of
mutilations and decomposition often obscures the evidence. There is an additional mutilation factor
resulting from the action of carrion-feeding insects such as blowflies and from
maggots. These insect mutilations are usually of little significance before an animal
has been dead for several days.
The Vulture Factor
The role of vultures in
cattle mutilations in the United
States United
States
Country folk often refer to
turkey vultures as buzzards and regard them as just part of the scenery rather
like ravens or crows. Unless one actually sees turkey vultures on a carcass one
could easily think these birds were nothing to do with cattle mutilations but
they are undoubtedly a significant part of the overall picture. Overlooking the role of vultures in the
mutilation mystery is like ignoring one very large piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
The situation is complicated
by the fact that there are also (American) black vultures which are very
different and are much more aggressive birds.
These are often predators rather than just scavengers and they will
attack and kill calves and sometimes even adult cattle. They are somewhat smaller than the turkey
vultures and have a wingspan of about 5 ft as against the turkey vulture’s 6 ft
span. At a glance many people would be
unable to tell them apart but the attached photos of both varieties clearly
show the difference. Black vultures
often operate in large “gangs”. I say gangs
rather than flocks because they can aggressively swarm a calf --or even an adult
cow-- overwhelming it. They usually peck, or pick, its eyes out first and this
can send their victim into shock thereby killing it.
Whereas turkey vultures will often endlessly wheel high
in the sky looking for carrion, black vultures more usually roost in trees near
where there are calves and other cattle before rapidly flying in to make an
attack. Alternatively a gang of black
vultures may settle near a cow with its newborn calf and walk around it almost
as if pretending they had no interest.
Then, when close enough, they may attack a calf by grabbing its eyeballs
and pulling them out blinding the animal.
Or, one might grab a calf by its nose or by its tongue. Then the rest of the vulture gang hurry over
and start grabbing at it. Calves are
often easy pickings for such predators.
The birds will occasionally attack adult cows while they are giving
birth and they also will grab and eat afterbirth that remains attached to a
calving cow. When scavenging turkey
vultures have discovered a fresh carcass they are sometimes driven off it by
the more aggressive black vultures that may follow them.
An article from 2000 titled
“Vultures and Livestock” by Laurie Paulik (National Wildlife Research Center
Information Services) that was previously available on the Colorado State
University website is appended at the end of this article.
It is difficult to assess
what proportion of UCDs in any state in any year are attributable to predatory
attacks by black vultures rather than other causes. This obviously depends on
the presence of these birds in a particular state and there are many states
which are not within the normal range of black vultures. We will consider their actual range
later. Although they are known to prey
on livestock they also scavenge on carrion and not necessarily carrion from
livestock. An attached photo shows three
black vultures with a mutilated deer which they had presumably killed earlier.
Livestock predation by black
vultures has sometimes meant that turkey vultures get the blame. This is because they will sometimes arrive to
scavenge what the black vultures have left behind and the assumption can be
wrongly made that the turkey vultures killed the animal. A different scenario is that turkey vultures
which have discovered a carcass are sometimes displaced on it by black
vultures. Both types sometimes roost
together in trees and people are often unaware that there are different types
of vulture present. It is however easy
enough to distinguish between them if one examines the heads of the vultures
through binoculars.
Characteristic ‘Type A’ mutilations made by avian scavengers
Here are the most common
mutilation wounds that are inflicted on dead livestock by vultures --both
turkey vultures and black vultures. Some
of these mutilations could be inflicted by other birds --such as eagles, hawks,
ravens, crows and magpies—but with cattle carcasses vultures are the most
likely culprits.
(1)
One or both eyes
pecked out.
(2)
Tongue of animal
removed or partly removed.
(3)
Edge of mouth
eaten away and sometimes a greater area of flesh around mouth.
(4)
Rectum of animal sometimes
appears to be cored out.
(5)
Where (4) has
occurred, the intestines may then have been pulled out and eaten.
(6)
Animal’s sexual
organs (e.g. testicles) may have been removed and eaten.
(7)
If the abdominal
cavity or the thoracic cavity has been penetrated, internal organs such as the
heart may have been pulled out and eaten.
(8)
Carcasses may
appear to be drained of blood but the blood no longer circulates once an
animal’s heart stops pumping at the time of its death. Within a few hours –say
about 4 hours-- blood begins to lose its fluidity and clots inside the carcass.
Vultures and other avian
scavengers often prefer to eat the viscera of a dead animal first. One reason for this is that the soft internal
organs such as the intestines can be extracted from a carcass by use of the
birds’ beaks more easily than pulling raw flesh off the bones. It is a well known fact that vultures have
bare unfeathered heads so that they can reach into a carcass without fouling
their feathers or risk getting them stuck in the aperture. The black vulture in
particular has a completely bare neck as well as its head.
Mammalian scavengers such as
coyotes may inflict some similar mutilations on a carcass but in general they
will inflict Type B mutilations with their teeth. The extent of both types of mutilation
obviously depends on the number of birds or animals that have fed on a carcass
and the length of time they have been at it.
As remarked previously, mutilations of more than one type can be
inflicted on a single carcass, often depending on the cause of death and what
opportunity scavengers had later. The longer that scavengers work on a carcass
producing Type A and/or Type B mutilations the less distinct these will become
and the more difficult it is to establish what scavengers may have been
present.
It is quite clear than many
cattle mutilations that have been described as “surgically precise” in some of
the literature are anything but that.
Perfectly cored out rectums and dead straight incision lines that could
only have been made by use of sharp metal instruments or laser cutting tools
are not what one generally sees in the photographs. None of the mutilation photographs shown in An
Alien Harvest appear to show any of this alleged “surgical precision”. If there are photos which clearly show this I
would very much like to see them. As it
is, most of the mutilation photographs in the literature show Type A or Type B
mutilations --or possibly a combination of these types.
I don’t say there are no
mutilation marks which have been produced by sharp instruments and one well
known case where that occurred was on the Skinwalker Ranch. That will be
addressed later.
Can Colorado
For as long as this mystery has been going on
there have been outbreaks of mutilations in areas where there were none previously,
or at least none that were being reported. A fresh outbreak of mutilations in some
particular county may attract the attention of the local sheriff’s department
and that of those who research this phenomenon. Very often the mystery will
remain a mystery because there is that assumption the mutilations were caused
by whatever killed the animal rather than by scavengers such as vultures that
came along later. In addition to this,
if the vultures are predatory black vultures, gangs of them may well be responsible
for unexplained cattle deaths.
A report on a number of UCDs
and mutilation of the carcasses in Huerfano
County , Colorado
On Sunday, August 17th, Robert Wolf went
about his usual rounds, watering and checking on the animals in his care.
Around mid-day, Wolf drove up one of his familiar roads to tend to some
of the herd. Driving back down the road about two hours later, Wolf was
shocked and amazed to see one of his yearlings lying dead in plain sight about
30 feet off the road. He stopped and examined the animal carefully.
He could see no signs of mutilation. The tongue was still intact.
Continuing his chores, Wolf stopped and looked at the cow two more times
in the next couple of hours. It was still totally intact. Shortly
before 5 p.m., when Wolf was to meet the vet at the carcass site, he arrived at
the scene to find three vultures busily going after the cow’s tongue. One
vulture had the animal’s tongue pulled out and the other two were furiously
picking at it. As Wolf said: “They had it chewed up pretty bad and what
they were doing was definitely not producing a smooth cut. It was very
ragged.”
When Dr. Root arrived, he did a
“postmortem” on the fresh carcass as well as the four animals he had originally
been called out to examine. According to Robert Wolf, Dr. Root cut back
the jaws on the animals to determine the nature of the tongue removals.
Wolf later said that, according to the vet, “on all four of the
yearlings, it looked like it had been done with a smooth cut, like with a
knife.”
That these vultures were actually seen at work mutilating the
cattle carcasses is quite unusual and there must be hundreds of mutilation
reports which make no mention of vultures’ involvement. I am not saying that vultures are always
involved but I suggest they are responsible for a large part of the mutilation
mystery. This episode in Huerfano County
First, were these ordinary turkey vultures or were they black
vultures? We are not told. Turkey vultures could certainly be expected
to scavenge on cattle carcasses in Colorado US
supposedly does not include south Colorado
The second question is whether vultures “furiously picking at
the cow’s tongue” could have produced the smooth cuts that were subsequently
found. What Robert Wolf found was “very
ragged” but it seems he drove the birds away before they had finished eating
the tongue. If they had finished the job
one might assume that not too much tongue would be left behind and the severed
root of it would be well inside the animal’s mouth. The fact that one bird pulls on the tongue
stretching it, while the others pick at it, is also more likely to produce what
appears as a smooth cut. I suggest too
that wounds made by hooked beaks that stretch and tear a cow’s flesh will often
produce what look like linear incisions, unlike wounds in flesh that has been
chewed on by mammals with teeth.
Desiccation of flesh in the hot sun will also cause tightening of incisions
and straighten them more. Likewise the usual bloating of a dead carcass will
cause stretching and straightening of any wounds.
The report from Huerfano
County
In the past the role of vultures as cattle mutilators seems to
have been completely overlooked or ignored and it was usual to assume that
whatever mutilated the carcass also killed the animal. Quite clearly this is often a false
assumption but had the mutilations in Huerfano County ,
Colorado , occurred in Virginia ,
or in Alabama , or Mississippi ,
or Texas
When one talks of an outbreak of mutilations, one really means
there has been an outbreak of UCDs (unexplained cattle deaths) in an area. The actual deaths might have been caused by disease
–including agencies such as anthrax or botulism—or some sort of poisoning. The vultures don’t care and they can consume
such carrion without ill effects.
Many outbreaks of UCDs could be due to predator attacks. If a particular predator such as a mountain
lion moves into a new territory there could well be a rash of predatory attacks
on calves and/or cattle where there was none before.
The same would be true if predatory black vultures moved into a
new area. It’s worth taking a look at
the range of the American black vulture (see map) which is supposedly confined
to the southern and south-eastern states of the US Ohio , New
Jersey , Illinois , Missouri , parts of Texas
and New Mexico , southern Arizona
and southern California
The range of turkey vultures (see map) encompasses the whole of
the US South America . Although it needs to be checked, I suspect
that the Type A mutilations typical of vultures are found on cattle carcasses
in Mexico and northern Argentina
In other countries where there are vultures such as India , Iran ,
and some countries in Africa , the scavenging
role of these birds is well appreciated.
For hundreds of years Zoroastrians in Persia (now Iran) and Parsees living
near Bombay (now Mumbai) in India set out the bodies of their dead on large
circular stone “Towers of Silence” where vultures would eat the flesh of the
exposed human corpses. In India India India
would at first have shown Type A mutilations like carcasses in the US
In the 1990s the vulture population in India India
and Pakistan
The fact that vultures will rapidly strip a human body of flesh
was dramatically illustrated in May 2013 when a 52-year old woman hiking in the
French Pyrenees was killed in a fall down a mountainside and her body was then almost
entirely eaten by griffon vultures in about 45 minutes. Clearly the birds did not cause her death but
these avian carnivores were quick to seize their opportunity leaving only her bones,
clothes and shoes for burial.
This gruesome story of the woman who was devoured by vultures
can be found at:-
This also records that a French
farmer, Alain Larraide, saw a group of vultures attack and start eating an
adult cow. Despite the denials of
conservationists and ornithologists who want the protected status of these
birds maintained –which is something
that also applies in the US—many farmers insist that vultures are a real and
present danger to their livestock and that they should be allowed to shoot
them.
Now that we have ample evidence of vultures’ involvement in many
cattle mutilation cases in the US
What would the CSI team make of the mutilation
mystery?
Many people must wonder
whether the application of the methods of modern forensic science could solve
the cattle mutilation mystery for once and all.
I believe that it could and that this is something that should be
done. The long running CSI (Crime
Scene Investigation) TV crime drama is, of course, meant to be based in Las
Vegas which just happens to be where Robert Bigelow’s NIDS (National Institute for
Discovery Science) was based. For the
sake of argument let us envisage that a rather similar human mutilation
investigation is being conducted in Las
Vegas
For over a year a dozen or so
dead bodies have been found in Las
Vegas
The autopsy reports indicate
various causes of death. Some are due to
natural causes and others due to drug overdoses which may have been
self-administered or otherwise. At least
two of the victims were found to have been murdered, one having gunshot
wounds. It is clear that the incisions made
on these bodies were not the actual cause of death.
It would be most surprising
at this stage if the CSI team came up with the theory that this was the work of
aliens. Or that this was being done by
modern cannibals --although both such scenarios are things some might consider
possible in Las Vegas
The assumption that whatever
or whoever killed the victim also mutilated the body with these incisions would
not be an automatic assumption for our CSI team. It does however seem to be an automatic
assumption that has often been made by ranchers, sheriffs, and many mutilation
researchers but, let’s face it, the CSI dudes are a lot smarter than that. They would undoubtedly have secured the crime
scene immediately a mutilated corpse was found and they would have closely
questioned whoever discovered the body.
My fictional Vegas human
mutilations can be easily understood if we correctly guess the motive for these
bizarre crimes. A full autopsy shows
that internal organs, in most cases kidneys, had been carefully removed from
each body and were missing. Organ theft by
criminal gangs with medical expertise for the purpose of transplant surgery was
once thought to be an urban legend.
However there have been several cases where this has occurred in India and China
and that is what this fictional case in Las
Vegas
So how would the Vegas CSI
guys go about solving the cattle mutilation mystery? My suggestion is that the carcass of a
freshly slaughtered cow is placed in a remote pasture with an automatic
motion-activated video camera aimed at it from close by. This could be done in
a place where there had been a recent series of cattle mutilations. Spring or summer months would probably be best
in order to catch mutilators at work.
Maybe the carcass should be taken and placed in position under the cover
of darkness so potential scavengers did not observe this as a set-up. If examination of any resulting mutilations
showed that they matched those previously recorded in the literature on the
subject then we would know from the video camera recording exactly which
creatures had done it. Are there any
farmers or ranchers out there in the Midwest or in Colorado
If such an experiment is ever
tried I’m prepared to bet that the mutilators which are caught on camera are NOT
Linda Howe’s small gray aliens. Equally
unlikely too are MIBHs, reptilian aliens, CIA operatives, Satanists, or even government
scientists with hand-held laser cutters.
I think the chief suspects would be avian scavengers like vultures. A freshly killed carcass might also attract scavenging
coyotes, foxes, and raccoons. Let us see
which mutilators make which characteristic mutilations.
The fact that avian
scavengers leave behind little evidence of their visit on the ground may have
been what made some investigators invoke UFO-borne aliens, or else MIBHs, in
the first place. When there were no animal
or human footprints, tire marks, or other signs of recent activity near a fresh
mutilation it was often assumed that whatever did it must have come from the
sky and departed back into the sky. To
those unaware of the role played by vultures, the assumption was made that it
must be either aliens or, possibly, mysterious human agents who had arrived and
departed stealthily in their “black helicopters” to take away their bovine
tissue samples or whatever they were after.
I rather doubt that our CSI investigators from Las Vegas
The reason for introducing
this hypothetical CSI investigation of imagined human mutilation cases was to
emphasize that a CSI-style approach is the best chance of establishing what has
actually happened in a cattle mutilation case.
With this in mind let us look at two particular mutilation cases, one
near Ottumwa , Iowa ,
and one at the infamous Skinwalker Ranch in Utah
A cattle mutilation case in Iowa
It’s worth revisiting this
particular case which I examined at the time since it shows that a little
CSI-style investigation can yield a very convincing explanation without specialized
scientific equipment or expensive autopsies by veterinarians. The unexplained cattle death in question occurred
on Alan Pilcher’s farm near Ottumwa ,
IA.
Together with three others
who had an interest in the UFO subject or were members of MUFON I went to
examine and photograph the dead animal the next day. As can be seen in the accompanying photo the
heifer lay on its side with its legs sticking out straight. The mutilations were not extensive but were
quite distinctive. One eye was missing
which could easily have been pecked out.
Much of the tongue was missing but no clean cut was evident. The rectum was “cored out” but the way in
which the soft tissue had been removed was far from obvious. There did not appear to be tearing of the
flesh but nor were there any apparent “surgical cuts” as is sometimes claimed. There were what appeared to be some puncture
marks flecked with blood close to the animal’s udder. These could possibly have been puncture
wounds inflicted by a predator’s teeth.
The actual cause of death was
a mystery. Some blood had leaked out as
a result of the injuries but there was no large amount on the ground which
might be expected if the animal had suffered a sudden and violent death. There was no indication that the body had
been drained of blood as is sometimes claimed.
I asked Alan Pilcher what he
thought had killed his heifer. He said he was mystified and had never seen
anything like this before. Of course
cattle did die on the farm from time to time but that was more usually from
some illness and he had no reason to think this animal had been sick. One of my
companions who had for years told us that he was an alien abductee said he
thought it was the doing of UFO-borne aliens and the mutilations were like
those described and photographed in Linda Howe’s book An Alien Harvest (1989).
I was somewhat less than convinced
that alien grays or reptilian ETs were responsible. It made no sense at all and there was
absolutely no evidence to support such an explanation. Further examination of the carcass revealed
two minor details which I hadn’t seen before.
There were some splashes of birdpoop on the carcass which, from their
position, didn’t seem to have just fallen from the sky. Also a dark feather lay near the carcass. One
might easily have missed these details but it was just then that a turkey
vulture flew quite low overhead showing a clear interest in the cadaver and our
presence in the field. This might have
been circumstantial evidence but it certainly looked as if the bird wished to
resume any scavenging that it may have been up to earlier.
If this vulture had made some
of the mutilations on the carcass there still was no answer to what killed the
heifer. I asked Alan Pilcher if there
were any other unusual things that he had noticed before this UCD
occurred. He then mentioned the howling coyotes. For all of the previous week the coyotes near
the farm had been “singing” every night.
It probably meant they were up to something and it is known that coyotes
can kill calves and sometimes adult cows.
On the night before the heifer was found dead the coyotes didn’t sing
for the first time in days but Alan had seen some of them running along the
fence of the pasture at dusk. The cattle
had slept up by the barn, close to the farmhouse, and were possibly there at
the time that this heifer met its death further down the field and out of sight
from the house. A pack of coyotes will
usually make a kill by singling out one particular cow from a herd, chasing it,
and pulling it down. This particular
heifer may have strayed too far from the rest of the herd unaware of the
lurking danger.
A number of coyotes could
easily catch and overwhelm a 300 lb heifer like this and its death might have
been from shock. Coyotes kill some full-sized
adult cattle as well as calves. USDA nationwide statistics for predator-related
cattle losses in 2005 showed that coyotes were responsible for 51% of such
losses. Contrary to what one might
think, coyotes that have made a kill don’t necessarily rip open their victim
immediately and feast on the flesh.
Predation is usually a secretive event that takes place in areas far from
human habitation. Alan’s heifer was
killed only 200 yards from the farmhouse and if the coyotes did it, as seems probable,
they may have been disturbed by the large dogs at the farm which are usually kept
chained up. If that was so, the coyotes
made a rapid exit. Carcasses of animals killed by coyotes are, for whatever
reason, sometimes left uneaten.
Alan Pilcher did telephone a
veterinarian but he was reluctant to come and look at the carcass saying it was
not worthwhile. No report of this appeared
in the local newspaper and the event seemed to be only of interest to local MUFON
folk who were mostly thinking in terms of UFOs and that this cattle mutilation must
have been done by aliens. I am confident
that this particular mutilation was likely the work of turkey vultures some
time after the heifer was killed by coyotes.
It looks as if the coyotes, which are usually pretty smart animals, did
not think this kill through. A dead calf
is sometimes dragged away by such predators but a heifer of this size would be
impossible to move.
A calf mutilation at the Skinwalker Ranch
One of the best known and
best documented cattle mutilations occurred on the Sherman Ranch in northeast Utah
http://www.skinwalkerranch.org/videos/mutilationofcalves.pdf
The story as told to the NIDS
researchers when they arrived was that Terry Sherman (aka Tom Gorman) and his
wife spent a bright Sunday morning tagging the ears of newborn calves. They put a tag on the ear of a calf born near
the ranch house, then wandered out into the pasture for a period of 45 minutes.
In that interim period, with the Shermans Las Vegas
[The NIDS report at the above link refers rather coyly to “the ranchers”
rather than naming them as Terry and Gwen Sherman. The NIDS team who arrived at the ranch later
that day is referred to as “two NIDS scientific investigators and a veterinarian” rather
than giving actual names. The two NIDS
investigators were Colm Kelleher and physicist Dr. Eric W Davis.]
The NIDS team flew from Las Vegas to Vernal, UT, and drove to the ranch arriving
just five hours after Sherman
Judging from the description
in the NIDS report and photographs of the calf’s mutilated carcass it appears
these are either Type C mutilations or much more likely a combination of Type B
and Type C. Let us come back to that
later.
Some of the background to the
Skinwalker Ranch story needs to be looked at here before considering what may
have really happened as regards this calf mutilation. Terry Sherman and his family purchased the
ranch in 1994 and he planned to raise top quality beef cattle there. He had
already established a reputation in two states as an expert in raising
Simmental and Black Angus show cattle that fetched especially high prices at
cattle auctions. While his neighboring
ranchers regularly lost 5% of their animals each year to predators, bad
husbandry, and other mistakes, the Shermans
It soon became plain to Sherman
This is all described at
length in the 2005 book Hunt for the Skinwalker –Science Confronts the Unexplained at a
Remote Ranch in Utah Sherman
It is quite clear from the
Skinwalker book that Terry Sherman strongly believed that some invisible or semi-visible
alien entity similar to a bigfoot was responsible for the attacks on his cattle
and, possibly, for other strange happenings at the ranch. When watching the 1987 movie Predator
on TV in which Arnold Schwarzenegger battles an alien life-form in a jungle in Central America , Terry and his son let out a loud yell
when they first saw the shimmering alien creature. “That’s what we saw”, they both yelled in
unison to the astonished family.
Obviously the alien creature in the movie left a deep impression on
Terry Sherman but this may well have been before he first started believing
that he was seeing a similar alien predator creature near the ranch.
There are certainly other
cases where a movie monster appears to have escaped from the silver screen and
terrorized communities. The best example
of this is probably the female monster Sil in the 1995 American science fiction
horror film Species. When this was
first shown in Puerto Rico there were soon
reports of attacks by an almost identical alien monster which was called a
chupacabra. The word means “goat-sucker”
and this legendary cryptid supposedly sucked the blood of goats belonging to
members of various Hispanic communities in Puerto Rico
and further afield. These sensational
claims of alien predation by chupacabras reached their peak in the late 1990s
at just the same time that the predatory attacks on cattle were happening at
the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah
Hunt for the Skinwalker recounts some of
Terry Sherman’s stories in which the shimmering alien predator appears from
nowhere –maybe, he thinks, through a portal from a different dimension-- and
terrorizes people or animals on the ranch.
In one story a tall blond stranger arrived to meditate in a pasture. Terry heard the chime of a cowbell in the
distance and then the blurry shape of the predator was seen moving through the
trees. It broke from the tree line and, blurred as if hidden in a heat
distortion, rushed toward this blissed-out meditator who seemed completely
unaware of what was bearing down on him.
The “thing” stopped inches from the man and let out a mighty animal roar
sounding half like a bear and half like a lion.
The man screamed hysterically and fell on the ground. Terry rushed to help him but as he did so the
creature vanished into the trees.
One could easily be excused
for thinking that Terry Sherman was living in a fantasy world of his own. There
were many stories of his –I’d say tall tales-- but little proof of anything. No photographs, no independent witnesses, no
material evidence. What did Colm
Kelleher and the other researchers from NIDS really think was going on here?
“Mike” sees Alien Predator arrive at ranch through a
tunnel
Despite the sensational
stories of strange happenings at the ranch in the Skinwalker book very little
weird stuff seemed to be going on there that the NIDS team could photograph or scientifically
measure. Despite intensive surveillance
for months on end there was little to record that was actually seen by the NIDS
people or which couldn’t be naturally explained. Was it possible that Terry
Sherman’s alien entities and/or cryptid creatures existed only in his subjective reality and were
basically his hallucinations?
There is one very telling episode
which is described by Colm Kelleher in the Skinwalker book. On 25 August 1997 two of the NIDS team on
duty were carrying out a night watch on the ridge up behind the ranch
house. This was just a few months after
the calf mutilation episode described previously. The men are referred to by
the pseudonyms “Mike” and “Jim”. After a
very long watch Jim catches sight of a faint stationary light low down over the
track 150 ft below. It doesn’t move but
seems to brighten somewhat. Jim draws
Mike’s attention to it and readies the camera with freshly loaded infra-red
film. Both men look at the dim light
through their night-vision binoculars.
Suddenly Mike whispers “It’s
a tunnel –not just a light”. Then, he
says “Jesus Christ! Something’s in the
tunnel.” And, next, “There’s a black
creature climbing out. I see its face”. Jim is most alarmed and feels that his
companion is now bordering on panic.
Jim is desperately trying to
see what Mike sees. All the time he is taking film shots with the special camera. He looks at the light through his night-vision
binoculars and even swaps his binoculars with Mike’s. But he sees nothing of the tunnel or of any
creature. He merely sees the light which
soon begins to fade away. Mike tells Jim
that “A big black creature just crawled through that tunnel, got onto the
ground, and walked away.”
When the light disappeared
only a deep silence remained. Nothing
moved and even the distant coyotes had stopped howling. Both men later went down to where the light
had been. They searched for footmarks or other signs of the mystery creature. They found nothing though supposedly a
pungent smell lingered. (Aren’t bigfoots meant to leave behind a foul odor?) There was certainly no physical sign that
anything had been there at all. Later
when the film in the camera was processed it too showed nothing.
To his credit Colm Kelleher
admits that Jim saw nothing of the supposed bigfoot-like creature crawling out
of the “tunnel” which Mike believed was something like a portal from another
dimension. George Knapp’s version of the
same story published on the net at a later date has both men seeing the
creature. So what’s the truth of the matter?
First, one should know that “Mike” is none other than Terry Sherman
himself which neither Kelleher nor Knapp reveal. “Jim” is a Canadian friend of mine who worked
for NIDS and I’ve been over the story with him many times. He is someone who is quite ready to believe
in paranormal happenings but he definitely never saw Terry Sherman’s alleged creature.
“If Terry was making it up he was quite some actor”, he says. Nevertheless “Jim” has to acknowledge that Sherman
Others from NIDS that I’ve
asked about Terry Sherman have said that he always sounded as if he was telling
the truth. At least the truth as he perceived it, one might add. Whether or not Terry was telling the truth,
most of the investigators never saw the UFOs or any of the paranormal animals
and entities that feature in his claims which are described in the Skinwalker book.
Like so many UFO stories and other tales
of the paranormal these anecdotes may well have been subjective and also highly
embellished. If the NIDS researchers did
see anything anomalous at the ranch it was usually fleeting and was seldom capable
of being scientifically recorded. Their
problem was always “difficulty
obtaining evidence consistent with scientific publication”. Eventually the
NIDS project at the Skinwalker Ranch was terminated by Robert Bigelow and it
has been many years now since there has been a suggestion that anything
anomalous was still happening there.
Who or what cut up the dead and mutilated calf at the
ranch?
The 10 March 1997 calf
mutilation is said to be one of the few unexplained events that were examined
during the project. Apparently only
Terry Sherman and his wife Gwen were present when this occurred and he summoned
the NIDS team which arrived some five hours later. Skeptical observers will obviously be
suspicious about the sequence of events --and what really happened— and whether
these events were exactly as Sherman
Why would Sherman Shermans
There is a far simpler
explanation for what happened here and I’ve no doubt that the fictional CSI
team from Las Vegas
The fact that there was a
predatory mountain lion stalking Sherman Sherman
There is no suggestion by
Colm Kelleher in the book, so far as I can see, that this was a mountain
lion. Were Terry Sherman and the other NIDS
people unaware that mountain lions are often responsible for livestock
predation in western states like Utah
A friend of mine shot a
mountain lion in a tree in central Arizona US
to my friend’s house in Scotland
But, returning to the NIDS
calf mutilation report, we should ask why there is no mention that this could
have been a predator attack by a mountain lion.
The report indicates there was evidence of chewing with teeth on the
carcass which makes it a Type B mutilation.
There was also clear evidence of cutting with a sharp metal instrument indicating
a Type C mutilation. Therefore one is
forced to think that this must have been a Type B + Type C mutilation. The NIDS report appears to not even consider
that two types of mutilation could have been made by entirely separate
agencies. Again, it assumes that
whatever killed the wretched calf was responsible for all the mutilation of its
body including the straight cuts. It
puts forward various scenarios suggesting that unknown persons snuck up and
butchered the animal. If so, did these
mystery intruders chew on the carcass too? There was never any
suggestion that the carcass attracted scavengers after it was killed.
I suggest that the mystery
intruder scenario is absurd and a much simpler solution is that someone from the ranch interfered with
the crime scene after the initial predator attack. Since the report states there was no blood on
the ground, it is possible the mutilated calf was moved and then laid out on
its back in the place where the NIDS team were shown it. Kelleher says in the book that “there was a
fastidious delicacy to the way the mutilated calf had been carefully laid out
on the grass with all four legs spread neatly away from the body”. Almost as if
ritualistically done. Does this sound
like a natural predator or even like Sherman
The left ear had been cleanly
sliced off with a knife and the yellow ear tag which had supposedly been
attached was missing. Cutting off the
ear in this case could have been done because the calf had not yet been tagged,
which would of course conflict with what NIDS was told. Or, if the ear was already tagged, the tag number
could have given away the fact that the killing might have happened much earlier
than said--which would again conflict with Sherman
Besides the cutting off of the
left ear with a sharp instrument, another knife or machete had been used to
make a cut on the severed femur and through the forelimbs’ connective tissue. Unless we are to believe that alien predators
or bigfoots carry sharp knives there seems to have been what our CSI team would
call “interference with the crime scene”.
If that is ever suspected, investigators should not accept unquestioningly
the story of the person claiming to have discovered the corpse and claiming it was
left exactly as it was.
The NIDS report accepts Sherman
Is it possible that someone wanting to demonstrate that this
mutilation was the work of an invisible alien predator would add knife cuts to
a carcass already killed and mostly eaten by a natural predator, and then take
it and lay it out on its back for the investigators? The answer is certainly “yes” if that someone was anxious to convince NIDS
that this wasn’t just another natural predator attack.
I hesitate to suggest that
this “someone” was Terry Sherman himself
but he was certainly the one person who had such a motive. At some stage he must have faced this
$64,000 question: Could a necropsy by NIDS (or anyone else) distinguish between
a cattle mutilation done by natural predators and a so-called paranormal cattle
mutilation done by aliens, or perhaps MIBHs, or a Predator-the-movie-style alien
life-form? Had Sherman
If precise straight line cuts
were needed to convince NIDS it was a “genuine” paranormal mutilation, then
maybe this was what needed to be presented to them. That may be the reason why the calf’s ear was
sliced off with a sharp knife. It’s
possible too that Colm Kelleher had asked Terry Sherman on the phone earlier that
day “Are you sure this one isn’t just another natural predator attack like the others
we’ve seen already? In which case, is it
really worth us flying up to the ranch?”
It is noteworthy too that NIDS published full details of this particular
calf mutilation --rather than any others from the ranch—simply because this one
showed clear evidence of cutting with instruments.
Certainly there’s nothing to
indicate that vultures had anything to do with this calf mutilation and it’s
doubtful too whether there are ever predatory black vultures in Utah
Rommel was right
There looks to be little doubt
that the cattle mutilations at the Skinwalker Ranch during Terry Sherman’s
tenure, and during the years that the NIDS research project was in progress
there, were the result of natural predator attacks. Most of the attacks were on calves and in
many cases no trace of the animal was ever found. I have suggested that some of these were carried
out by one or more mountain lions which are quite capable of seizing calves and
taking them away to eat. Other attacks
may have been by coyotes or wild dogs.
In any case one has to sympathize with Terry Sherman whose cattle
raising enterprise in such a hostile environment was seriously blighted. Most of these natural predators stalking Sherman
During the late 1970s the US
Federal authorities came under increasing pressure to launch an investigation into
the cattle mutilation problem in such states as New Mexico
and Colorado
Rommel’s final report
consisted of about 300 pages and his investigation cost around $45,000. It concluded that the mutilations were almost
entirely the result of natural predation.
Although he stated that there were anomalies that could not be accounted
for by conventional wisdom the FBI had been unable to identify any individuals
responsible for the mutilations. He
stated “most credible sources have attributed this damage to normal predator
and scavenger activity.”
It seems unfortunate that the
report tended to bundle together predators and scavengers without their respective
roles being made distinct. Also, the fact that, if the animal’s death was a
natural one, or the result of natural predation, mutilation of its carcass
might well be inflicted by scavengers that acted independently. Vultures are mentioned in the report but
with little acknowledgement of the major role that they play in many cattle mutilations. The fact that black vultures can be predators
rather than just scavengers was not suggested.
Possibly Rommel was unaware of the predatory potential of these birds
and their possible presence in New
Mexico
In any case Rommel’s report
was condemned and rejected by many researchers who considered it totally
unsatisfactory if not a US
Paranoia as regards the
cattle mutilations had risen to such a crescendo at the end of the 1970s that
rejection of Rommel was widespread. What
can one say about the alternative explanations that were being offered back
then --and in the years since-- to account for the cattle mutilation mystery? Here is a list giving some of the supposed
culprits:-
(1)
MIBHs (Men in
Black Helicopters) --either military or
intelligence agency men—operating covertly to take tissue and/or blood samples
from cattle they have killed, possibly
by use of high-velocity rifles or by the clandestine testing of chemical and/or
biological weapons.
(2)
Extraterrestrial
aliens in their UFOs/flying saucers beaming up selected cattle in order to
collect genetic material which is removed from the beast using precision
surgery. This is necessary for the survival of their race according to Linda
Howe.
(3) Terry Sherman’s Skinwalker Ranch “alien predator” (as in Predator
the movie).
(4) Chupacabras, Bigfoots, Vampires, Werewolves, etc.
(5) Satanists.
(6) Assorted criminals including rustlers, delinquent
shooters with hunting rifles, misfits, psychopaths, thrill-seekers, etc.
Take your pick. Without any need to say that all of these explanations are very unlikely solutions to the overall cattle
mutilation mystery, let me offer this perspective: if any of these scenarios were actually happening during the 1970s and
the 1980s, even then they must have represented just a tiny fraction of what was
actually occurring nationwide. The vast
majority of the mysterious cattle mutilations back then –and, indeed, today—are
satisfactorily explained by the activities of predators and/or scavengers,
particularly vultures. I have to say that
we should seriously consider that Rommel was right after all.
George Wingfield
February 2015
********************************************************************************
Vultures and Livestock
Vultures that kill livestock become an instant
concern to farmers and ranchers. Martin S. Lowney, a biologist with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services Program in Virginia
"When we get someone complaining about
vultures killing their livestock," Lowney said, "we start quizzing
them to get them to describe the vultures, so we can make sure they understand
that there's 2 different species of birds. Their replies are pretty consistent.
They describe: the little black one, the one that's aggressive, the one that's
in gangs, the one that lets you walk up to within 20 to 30 feet of it."
Black vultures mostly kill cattle, though
attacks on deer and other wildlife have been recorded. They will occasionally
attack adult cows giving birth, but primarily pounce upon new-born calves. Virginia
"I've seen 2 attacks in progress,"
Lowney said. "It happens so fast. I saw a group of 4 or 5 vultures sitting
in a pasture. They walked up to a 1-day-old calf. Then, the mother, the cow,
came over and stood over the calf and all of a sudden there were 15 or 20
vultures darting in and trying to poke the calf and grab it. The cow began
charging at the vultures, scaring them away. She was stepping on the calf, and
it was bawling because it was getting stepped on. That's when I broke it
up."
"On the same pasture, and the same day,
there was a different calf attacked. This one was about 3 or 4 days old. Again,
there were about 15 or 20 vultures sitting there. One of them walked up to the
calf and grabbed it by the nose, and another one grabbed it by the tail. Then
the rest of them just came running over and started grabbing at it. I broke
that up and ended up killing 2 of the vultures and harassing the rest of them
away."
Lowney acknowledges that there are few options
available for him to help farmers and ranchers with vulture problems. Since
vultures are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, it is illegal to kill
them without a permit. Though he will help farmers get permits, he also urges
them to practice good husbandry by burying or burning dead animals and putting
cows in close-by, easily watched pastures during the calving season.
Alternatively, he can start them on a harassment program with firecrackers and
other pyrotechnics. Black vultures, however, are very aggressive and very
persistent and quickly become accustomed to scaring devices. Even if biologists
can get the birds to leave, they may not go far.
"I know in a few instances all I've done
is just push the birds around the neighborhood," Lowney said.
"Someone will call me up 2 days after I harass some birds and say that 80
vultures just showed up. I'll ask them where they live and then realize it's
only a mile or a half-mile from the first guy. So, I start this next guy on a
harassment program, the birds move on and I get a call from another
farmer."
The above is from the
Libraries of Colorado State University
(Fort Collins
The ‘Wildlife Damage
Management’ article is from USDA’s Wildlife
Services National
Wildlife Research
Center in Virginia USDA Research
Center
[The above link
no longer takes one to the article which is presented above and seems to have
been terminated at the end of 2014]
*************************************************************
On the subject of whether predatory vultures
actually attack and kill livestock the link below to an article in the UK ’s Independent newspaper describes the
controversy over this that has arisen in France village of Aste-Béon US
