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Coyote, cougar, bear or dogs, What is mutilating Bethany animals?

Terri Miles, Editor
November 02, 2005
Amity (CT) Observer

BETHANY - Rolling Greens Road is a quiet, established street off Bethmour Road
where children still ride bicycles and play basketball with their neighborhood
friends.

Woods surround the modest homes and the street is relatively quiet and peaceful
- until recently. Residents are on edge after vicious animal mutilations have
them questioning what they can do to keep their livestock, pets and families
safe.

Margaret Battone never replaced her two cats or 10 chickens that were
slaughtered by an unknown predator earlier this year. The animals were killed,
but not eaten, which seemed to eliminate hungry wild animals as the culprits.
Instead, Battone said, the animals seemed to have been killed for "fun" and
their corpses left in her yard.

Something also killed her neighbor's llama foal last spring.

"Around here, we've learned not to let our pets out at night," Battone said.
"I'm a dog breeder, and it's frightening, because you can hear the coyotes in
the woods at night and I've seen them during the day. We've learned to live with
them."

When Battone heard her neighbor's llamas screaming at 11 a.m. one day two weeks
ago, she went over to investigate. What she found was gruesome.

Two adult llamas, which weighed about 800 pounds each, were savagely mutilated,
torn inside out, she said. Three other llamas also were mauled, but not killed.
One of these survivors died last Wednesday.

"I went to the District Animal Control office for some advice," Battone said,
"but there was nothing they could do because it was probably a wild animal that
did it.

"There's a [predator] in our neighborhood that's sick or angry," she said. "We
know better than to go out to our barns at night."

Battone said the DAC officer told her that her neighbors shouldn't be afraid for
their animals because horses kick and can fight off a coyote, and coyotes are
naturally afraid of dogs.

"Llamas are big, and they can fight and kick, but they don't have hard hooves
like horses," Battone said. "Coyotes will bite their legs till they fall down
and then they go for the throat and vital organs."


Might be a bear ...
Battone said the DAC officer told her to call the Department of Environmental
Protection (DEP). Her neighbor, Dan Iead, called the DEP and a couple of days
later, an official came to the llama farm. According to Battone, the official
looked at the surviving animals' injuries and said a black bear could have
attacked the llamas. He reportedly said the claw marks and mayhem were not
consistent with a coyote attack.

The officer looked for tracks, but all he found was canine prints. "Everyone
around here has dogs, so we can't even prove if they are coyote tracks," Battone
said. "We don't know what it is."

The DEP officer reportedly said the same animal might have killed the llama foal
last spring and now it will return to the site of that killing for more food.

"He said black bear are not all about berries and twigs [as some people think];
they like meat," Battone said.

The DEP officer said he would send a biologist to continue the investigation.

"Whatever it is seems to be doing it for fun," Battone said. "It's not killing
them and eating them because it's hungry - it's murdering them. "I was thinking
about getting a mare, but now, I don't think so - it wouldn't be fair to put it
out there to [be killed].

"What freaks me out is that [the latest attack] was in the middle of the day. I
don't even put my dogs out in the pen during the day anymore," she said.


What does one do?
The thought of having a bear in the neighborhood frightened Bethmour Road
resident Jeanne Eichelsdoerfer.

"We should know what to do," she said. "Some people suggest that we make a lot
of noise to scare them away or [put] bright lights outside. But animal experts
should be telling us what to do."

Eichelsdoerfer said everyone in her neighborhood has a dog and they have taken
precautions with the pets because of the coyotes. But this is a bigger problem
and people in the Rolling Greens neighborhood are afraid.

"We don't expect the [wild] animals to be killed," Battone said, "but we ought
to know how to protect ourselves and our animals."

In the past year, two black bear sightings have been reported in this region,
one in Orange and one in Hamden.

General information about black bears can be found on the Internet, although
some of it can be conflicting as to size and characteristics.

Although one site offers tips for human encounters with black bears, the state
DEP website is the only one with brief information on protecting livestock from
them.

It states: "Livestock can be protected with electric fencing or by moving them
into a secure building at night."

It offers no tips on protecting livestock during the day, which is when the
recent Bethany attacks occurred.


A pack of dogs?
Iead said DEP officers have been on the case since his llamas were killed. After
nearly daily visits to his property, he said, their theories have run the gamut
from a bear, to possibly a cougar attack, but there is one problem - the tracks.


"There were no bear tracks and no cat tracks - only canine tracks," Iead said.
"They don't know what it is, but now they think it might be dogs. They are still
investigating."

Iead said he is afraid for his animals after watching his friendly llama herd
dwindle down to two.

"I had the mother llama [that was just killed] for seven years," he said. "I
can't leave them out in their pen anymore. I don't want to lose them. I bring
them out to the front yard to graze and walk them around the neighborhood when
it's light out."

The DEP investigators told Iead that coyotes most likely are not responsible for
the disembowelment of his llamas.

"Right now, they think it might be dogs. Because of the tracks and the damage,
dogs might be responsible," Iead said. "But they still don't know for sure."


Other mysterious attacks
A resident in the Litchfield Turnpike area of town told the Observer that two of
her roosters were mutilated inside their enclosed pen Monday morning.

"There are no dig marks under the base, no holes in the fence, and no opening at
the top," she said. "We don't know what it was, or how it got in or out of the
pen. This is terrifying."

A half-mile away, another resident said she lost all her roosters to some kind
of predator. She said her birds were locked away in a barn but she knows the
predator entered through a window.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1342&dept_id=433249&newsid=15502728&PAG=4\
61&rfi=9
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