Cattle Mutilation returns to the San Luis Valley

Manuel Sanchez, a rancher outside of the town of San Luis, Colorado suffered the loss of four calves due to mysterious mutilations in 2009, and this month he has lost another. The string of mutilations in 2009 began with a fury in March with two animals on three different ranches in and around the San Luis Valley dying of mysterious causes. Authorities, including the local branding inspector, and ranchers could not determine how the animals were killed. In each case there were no signs of a struggle, nor a speck of blood nearby, indicators of a predator kill. The deaths didn’t end in March; by the end of 2009 eight animals were killed, four of those belonging to Sanchez. Upset with the authorities’ inability to explain what happened to his animals, and feeling helpless to stop the killings, Sanchez sold off his remaining calves in 2009. His animals have been safe up until this month, when on May 17 he found one of his missing adult female cows apparently mutilated similarly to the calves in 2009. Upon inspection, as with the earlier cases, there were no signs of a struggle, nor splattering of blood, so it didn’t look like a predator had killed it. They also noted that the animal’s tracks leading to the area looked normal, the animal’s pace was not abnormal and did not indicate that it was having problems walking. It appeared that the cow just fell over, with no indication as to why or how it died. There was also a missing area of hide under the animal, exposing the rib cage. Zukowski measured the missing hide to be 27 by 42 inches...more