A mystery lay in Rick Alsager’s elk pen.
A strong, healthy six-year-old bull elk was dead on the ground beside Alsager’s house on his Maidstone, Sask., area farm.
There was no blood around the animal. It seemed physically perfect. Except its testicles and penis had been cleanly removed.
There were no other marks on the animal. And this, itself, was disturbing.
“It was done so neatly,” said Alsager. “I can’t imagine how I would have done it using the tools I have.”
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Alsager doesn’t think predators could have eaten the genitals, because the cuts seem precise and there is no apparent cause of death. And he said the body is completely drained of blood.
He doesn’t believe satanic cultists or other demented humans could have done it either, because many animal mutilations are reported every year and no people are caught at it.
Alsager hauled the carcass to the bush so the coyotes could eat it, but the coyotes and scavenger birds have refused to touch it, and the body has been left for a week.
There’s only one explanation: “Martians, maybe,” he joked.
But others don’t joke about the extraterrestrial connection. Some internet sites attribute livestock mutilations to UFOs that haunt Earth. Other sites suggest government agents from “black helicopters” might be connected.
Some veterinarians and RCMP officers have suggested human satanists may be mutilating cattle for their unspeakable demonic rituals.
Plausible explanation
But other vets, including some at the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association, have more mundane answers.
“They’re basically scavenged,” said Medicine Hat vet Marvin Genno. “You can prove it if they’re properly examined.”
Genno said he has never seen a case he would attribute to satanists, though he doesn’t doubt that cultists have victimized cattle occasionally.
But generally he believes the animals die suddenly from internal causes, then bloat and are eaten by carrion beasts.
The reason the genitals are gone is that they are the softest tissues on the body’s surface and would be “tasty morsels.”
Often with female animals the internal pressure will push the vulva and uterus out, so it will appear the internal organs have been removed without cutting into the body.
The cuts are clean because of the bloating, which swells out the genitals, the tongue and the anus. If tugged, the organ flesh will tear away cleanly from the surrounding hide, vets say.
Genno said farmers may find it hard to believe that skin tears away so neatly, and some vets may not fully accept it, but he has been examining animals when it actually occurs.
“I’ve seen them split,” he said.
Many mutilation reports mention that no blood is found around the animals. For Genno, that’s a dead giveaway that the animal was dead before the genitals were removed. If it was killed by the genital cut, there would be blood.
Genno said blood quickly clots in the body, so it can appear the animal has been drained.
He worries that farmers chalk up these deaths to unexplained causes and don’t do anything about them. But a sudden death in a young animal can point out a serious illness or disease, even anthrax. Farmers should have a vet examine sudden deaths to find the causes, he said.
