- Farmers in rural Lamar County want to know what kind
of animal is killing their livestock.
-
- Ashton Barefoot of the Oloh community said two of his
cattle have been killed in the last month.
-
- The first attack was on a 1,000-pound cow, he said.
-
- "When I went to check on the animals in the morning,
I saw that something had caught it by the neck under the throat area and
had eaten about 8 to 12 inches out the neck and flesh was eaten off the
side of the head."
-
- Barefoot, who breeds beef cattle, said a second incident
occurred 10 days later.
-
- Lamar County extension agent Clayton Rouse suspects the
deaths could be the work of a pack of stray dogs.
-
- "We've pretty much evaluated what is going on out
there and strongly suspect that it's stray dogs," he said.
-
- Rouse said it is common for dogs to be used to round
up cattle in that area and that those kinds of incidents happen throughout
the year.
-
- "Over the years, I have seen many cases where a
pack of dogs took down a full grown cow or horse," he said. "Dogs
are naturally predatory, they may be domesticated, but they still have
that instinct in them."
-
- Barefoot said he is skeptical of the stray dog theory.
-
- "A dog will normally catch an animal by the nose,
but it won't tear the throat out," he said.
-
- He said dogs would have left claw or bite marks on other
parts of the animal. He said his animals did not have marks on them except
where they were bitten.
-
- He also doubts the predator is a cougar or panther.
-
- "Big cats will tear out the throat, but normally
they eat about 15-20 pounds of food and whatever this was only ate about
three pounds. So, it doesn't quite jive as a large cat and doesn't quite
jive as large dog," he said.
-
- James Austin, a wildlife biologist with the Mississippi
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said the department has not been
able to confirm the existence of a cougar in the area.
-
- "To date, we haven't confirmed any of those types
of incidents, but we do get those types of reports. Certainly, if someone
has evidence of it we'd like to know about it," Austin said.
-
- Rouse said animal attacks occur throughout the county.
-
- "It's not just in Oloh. I've heard of loose dogs
affecting livestock in other areas. It's not a weekly thing. They're just
random attacks," he said.
-
- While Barefoot said that there is a substantial coyote
population in his area, neither he nor Rouse believes that they are the
culprit.
-
- "Coyotes are more opportunists. They'll eat your
sweet corn or a dead armadillo in the road," Rouse said. "And
coyotes aren't very big. Why would it attack a big cow, when it could just
eat a dead rabbit in the road?"
-
- Veterinarian Laurissa Heinz of the Purvis Animal Clinic
said the key to finding out what killed the cattle lies in the teeth and
claw markings.
-
- "Mostly wild animals go for the throat, but large
prey would leave marks on the body," Heinz said.
-
- Heinz said without examining the bite marks on the animal
it would be difficult to speculate on what killed the animal, but acknowledges
that a cougar would have done more damage.
-
- "Normally, something like that will go for the gut.
They'll go for the intestines because they're the easiest to get at,"
she said.
-
- Barefoot did not have his animals inspected by a veterinarian
after they were attacked.
-
- http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/news/stories/20031023/localnews/507169.html
|
