Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Trinidad, Colo. rancher finds mutilated cow

A cattle rancher made a horrific and mysterious discovery Sunday when he found the carcass of one of his cattle that was missing its udders and other female parts. No one is sure what killed the cow on a pasture near the Purgatoire River, but Trinidad rancher Mike Duran said he definitely finds the death unusual. Duran, 49, said Monday that after the cow had been missing for two days, he went to look for it in a pasture where he runs cattle a mile west of the town of Weston near Colorado 12. "I last saw her Friday. She's an older cow so I thought she may have died. "On Sunday, I spotted her near the (Purgatoire) river bottom and went and looked at her. She was on her side and it looked a little odd. "When I took a closer look I saw that her udders had been removed," Duran said. The cow had its udders cleanly cut off with no blood on or around the carcass, Duran said. "It was a perfect circle almost like a laser cut," he said. "It's not like a knife. it seemed to be cut and sealed at the same time," he said. This is not the first time Duran has found a mutilated cow on his ranch. In 1995, Duran said he found a cow that had been mutilated the exact same way on the same pasture. "The other cow's udders were snipped off the same way. It's hard to imagine what or who could have done this to me again," Duran said. The mutilation in 1995 never has been solved. Duran, who operates a 30-head cattle ranch, said that in both occurrences, there were no animal or human tracks around the carcasses. "There was no blood around either and if you cut off an udder there would be a whole lot of blood," Duran said. Duran said he has notified the Las Animas County Sheriff's Department about the mutilated cattle...Pueblo Chieftain

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw one of those mutilated cows a number of years ago in the Pecos Wilderness. There is no way this mutilation could have been done by a predator or bird. The animal was very fresh, laying in the middle of a meadow with a large stick very near her which had been used to keep her propped on her back.
Plenty of sick folks wander in the wilderness and elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

I heard Mike Duran talking and laughing about it at a tournament being played at TSJC to someone saying he had set it all up and how nobody could figure it out! This man is a habitual liar don't believe a word he says!