Canadian Cattle Mutilation

A farming town in central Alberta, Canada, recently experienced the strange phenomenon known as a Cattle Mutilation. An area rich in water, oil and gas reserves, appears to be a key factor where mutilations will occur. Everyone of the animal mutilation investigations I’ve done, are in areas where water is present and sometimes where natural gas and oil is present too! I believe it’s all connected.

On June 13th, 2024, I received an email from a daughter of a rancher who found one of their animals lying dead in a pasture with very unusual, surgical-like cuts on it’s face. The animal was found on Monday, June 10th while the ranchers were unloading a cattle liner and stock trailer of cattle to a pasture they lease. At the time I received the email from the daughter, the rancher was experience technical issues with their email, so it was a few of days until I could speak directly with them. Once I was able to speak with the rancher, I was very impressed with what I learned. The rancher or rancher’s, Tracy and Steve Kushnerik from Spruce View Acres, were very meticulous with their own investigation into the cause of death.

The animal was a purebred Simmental female, 9 years old, who didn’t have a calf on her nursing this year but should have been pregnant for a calf next season. Her name was Spruces Trinity. Value of the animal was about $10,000. When people hear about mutilation cases they really don’t grasp the issues involved. Someone or something purposely trespasses on private property, tracks down a specific animal, then kills it. Leaving absolutely no signs of evidence who the perpetrator is or evidence how the killing was done. The rancher is left with a lifeless body of an animal who was just minding their own business, grazing in a pasture a few hours before.

Some people may think, well it’s just an animal, but it’s more than that. Some mutilation cases have taken farm pets too! From horses, goats, pigs to dogs, it appears no farm mammal is safe. The majority of mutilation cases generally involve free grazing animals, animals not on steroids or pumped with any type of drugs, just animals living off the land moving from one pasture to the next. Another thing people don’t really understand is the impact to the rancher, besides a psychological impact, there’s also a profit loss. This profit loss can be exponential, a loss increasing quickly due to the multiplier effect. One animal loss means no future off-spring from that animal, that adds up. Then add up the future off-spring from the off-springs, it all adds up to thousands and thousands of dollars lost.

Sometimes a rancher may just lose one animal but sometimes a rancher may lose more. I’ve investigated one rancher who lost 4 animals at one time. Another one of my investigations a couple of ranches lost 8 animals during one mutilation event. In 2023 ranches in Texas lost at least 6 cows which was one week after a rancher I investigated lost 1, in Oregon. Oh, and there’s another thing, these mutilations happen in multiples. Meaning? If one animal is mutilated, it’s a guarantee at least two other animals were mutilated too! Maybe not from the same ranch, maybe not even in the same state, but multiple mutilations appear always within 3 days to a week of each other. Meaning? At least a couple of other animals were mutilated either before or after this mutilation, and we haven’t heard about it yet. We may never hear about them, most ranchers stay quiet about this type of phenomenon. They have their reasons and I respect that.

There are many variances in animal mutilation’s, not every surgical cut between cases are identical, but there is a pattern. I’ve learned over time there is some common denominators, like one being blood. Generally the animal is bled out, then the surgical cutting commences. Pretty scary stuff. Once again, most people can’t grasp what is actually occurring, something is taking a living animal, draining the blood, then cutting it up. Sometimes just a few yards away from the ranch house.

Forget the Marvel or DC Universe which is made up of make believe Super Hero’s and Villain’s, we have an unstoppable, unknown villain among us, and it’s interested in our live stock. Over 10,000 cases of mutilations have occurred since the “Snippy the Horse” mutilation from Colorado in 1967. Out of all the 10,000 or more cases in which law enforcement has investigated, no one has been caught, tried, or convicted for performing the largest animal cruelty case in the United States, maybe the world.

That should scare the hell out of you, it does me.

This particular case has a couple of differences compared to my other cases, and it seems I learn something new with every case I investigate or hear about. This particular animal showed extreme bloating which means there was a lot of out-gassing going on internally. Why? Were there open wounds where organs were taken. Also, no maggots were seen at the time the rancher found the animal which tells me, the rancher found the animal within hours of it’s death. Why, flies lay eggs, within 24 hours the eggs hatch into larva (maggots). No maggots were found, so it’s safe to assume the animal was probably killed the previous night.

The animal shows typical mutilation damage but no evidence of predator or scavenger damage on the carcass. Also, no evidence of limb movement due to struggling to stay alive. As if the animal was placed there. There is discoloration on the grass near the head where one would assume the head moved back and forth, and some manure smearing on the animal, but all is considered before certain claims are made.

One obvious question is, “Why are the cuts in those certain locations?” Well, not always, I’ve seen surgical-like cut all around the body, from the jaw line, to ears being removed, to tongues being removed, to holes in the upper region where organs were removed, to udder sacks being removed. There appears to be a pattern, but we can only speculate why.

• Cuts around the face are where glands are found.
• Cored out holes in the body could be for easy access to organs.
• Cow milk sacks can contain colostrum just after calving, which is pre-milk fortified with antibodies.
• Blood can tell someone how well organs or working, and can find diseases. It can also be used in hybrid generation because it contains DNA.
• No tracks of any kind were found around the body, or to or from the carcass from any type of vehicle including off road.

With this particular mutilation event, the rancher has an attention for detail and sent me a time-line of their investigation which included Fish and Wildlife, law enforcement, and a veterinarian hospital. This rancher is very thorough and definitely wants answers.

TimeLine:

Monday June 10:
– 7:20pm: Rancher found animal, pictures were taken, then they called Fish and Wildlife and spoke with an agent. Agent stated he and another agent would come out to site on Tuesday, June 11th.

Tuesday June 11:
– 8:03am: Rancher contacted local veterinary hospital to see if someone could come out to the site and do a post mortem, and take samples for analysis when the Fish and Wildlife agents were present.
– 9:00am: Rancher called local (RCMP) Royal Canadian Mounted Police to report the mutilation.

Note: The RCMP officer literally laughed at the rancher, but said an officer would contact them, but no one ever did. This happens all the time in mutilation cases and as a former Deputy Sheriff, I’m disgusted with the actions of some law enforcement agencies and the way they conduct business with these type of events. Their negligence of refusing to investigate cases like this one shows their unprofessionalism and total disregard for the very people they’ve sworn to protect. What if the animal was killed by an attempt to poach? What if the animal died due to poison, virus, or toxic water or gases? Law enforcement agencies “must” investigate these cases to rule out anything which could be harmful to humans.

– 11:30am: Ranchers spoke with owners of the property they’re leasing about the incident. The owner stated they heard the cows on Sunday evening, June 9th, “acting up” and making noise. Thought that was kinda strange, but did not investigate it.
– 1:15pm: Ranchers met with Fish and Wildlife officers and took them to the mutilation site. Officers immediately did a postmortem and evaluation of the cow. Upon completion of their investigation they both came to the conclusion that no predator of any kind killed or scavenged the cow including cougar, bear, wolf, coyote or eagle.
– 2:30 pm: Officers left the site with the ranchers.
– 4:30pm: Ranchers went back to the mutilation site and took biological samples from an unusual lump located on the back left thigh of leg, and from the face and eye where mutilation cuts took place. Samples taken were with clean q-tips and were put in sandwich bags separately and labelled with date and location on animal where sample was taken.

Wednesday June 12th:
– 11:40am: Rancher contacted two separate Royal Canadian Mounted Police agencies in the area, informing them both about what the Fish and Wildlife officers stated. Rancher was finally able to get one of the agencies to file a case report and set up a time to take a statement.
– 6:00pm: Rancher spoke with a representative with the local Veterinarian Hospital asking if someone could come out to the site for pathology testing.

Thursday June 13th.
– Morning: Rancher learned the representative from the local Veterinarian hospital stated the University of Calgary lab would accept the cow for testing.
– 7:30pm: Rancher gave crime statement over the phone to one of the (RCMP) agencies.

Friday, June 14:
– Rancher met with an animal transporter at mutilation site to take the animal to the University lab. The rancher noted no scavenging and maggots were seen on carcass at that time. This is over five days after the mutilation.

Note: At this time the rancher has invested:
– Horse Transporting and Bereavement invoice # 6184
– $724.50 for Zone 2 pick-up
– $390+GST
– Custom transfer to UCVM for $300
– Costs for the pathology testing not known at this time.

Note: The rancher has invested over $1400 out of pocket just to get an answer to why the animal died. The rancher is also out of pocket for the value of the animal at $10,000. Not including any future off-spring value which would be a lot, lot more.

Later, veterinary preliminary lab results stated, out of the 500 plus options that were tested on the animal for cause of death which includes poisons or drugs, all tests came back negative. In other words, no cause of death is known.

Interesting information:
The rancher noticed what appeared to look like some type of long fingerprint-looking marks on the animals back. Not like strap marks but definitely a “blood transfer” not a puncture, bruise or injury. It also appears the animal was pivoted to her final resting place. Yet, there is absolutely no signs of how the movement was done. Still, it appears the animal was placed straight down.

Placed, not dropped!

• Animal was found lying with her head North and the rump section South.
• No large amounts of blood were seen pooling around the animal.
  Note from rancher: There was absolutely no blood found on the ground at all. Even when the carcass was removed 5 days later. Only blood found was about 1/4 cup inside the mouth bottom of the cheek where the amputation of the tongue took place and the appearance of blood spray on the teeth and gums of the cow.
• No blood stains were found on the hide.
• No limb movement noticed on the soil indicating the animal struggled to survive.
• Manure was found smeared on the ground and hide as if the animal was placed on it.

Unusual lump-type curved papule found on hide oozing a little blood. I’ve never seen this before.

Tongue appeared to have been cut out.

At this time of the investigation:
Note from rancher: All lab results are now all in at the clinic from the University and lab in Ontario. Waiting to see if I can get a detailed report on all testing done in Ontario at the lab. Waiting on a written report from Fish and Wildlife yet.

Initial statements from the Fish and Wildlife agents who saw the animal first hand state, no signs of human or predator evidence caused the death. Initial toxicity report stated, no poisons or drugs were present in the samples the rancher gave them. No cause of death has been determined.

In my opinion, this is an actual animal mutilation case, not a natural death. If this was a common animal death, agents with Canada’s Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, would have confirmed that. The fact that they can’t confirm how the animal died and why, makes this a criminal case of the unknown which falls into the Cattle Mutilation phenomena. This has been going on for not only decades but possibly centuries too! I’m surprised mainstream media isn’t more concerned, thousands of animals are being killed, and no one knows why. Yes, there are speculations and theories, but they’re all best guesses at this time.

When lab results come back, I’ll post the results on this website.

Chuck Zukowski

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Category: The Z-Files