Unusual cow death likely natural: expert

An expert pathologist says a dead cow discovered Wednesday by a cattle rancher north of Saskatoon might have suffered its unusual looking injuries from perfectly natural causes. The owner of the cow, Neil Bartsch, had described the cut wounds as appearing very smooth and worried that the animal had suffered a cruel mutilation. But the pathologist, who's familiar with unusual animal deaths, said there may be a less malicious explanation. "Scavengers like coyotes, magpies [and] crows will come along to a carcass and attack the soft tissue first because that's the easiest part for them to ingest," Brendan O'Connor, the chief pathologist at Prairie Diagnostic Services in Saskatoon, told CBC News on Thursday. “So they'll chew off the teats. Especially coyotes would do that. Magpies or crows might remove the eyes." O'Connor added that cut marks on an animal may appear smooth because an initial jagged tear was pulled taut by the carcass bloating. As a result, an injury from a predator's or scavenger's teeth may look like it was done by a sharp instrument. "The carcass bloats up and the gas builds up under the skin and the tissues stretch,” O’Connor explained. “So those bite wounds will no longer be apparent." The man who owned the cow told CBC News on Thursday that he doesn't buy the natural-causes theory. "I don't think so. I'm positive it's somebody did it with a knife," Bartsch said. "I mean, I'm just totally convinced it's not predators that did that." Bartsch said he heard that a steer belonging to a neighbour had also died under mysterious circumstances...CBCNews