Posted on 09/08/2005 11:52:12 AM PDT by UnklGene
El Chupacabra? - Coleman man kills chicken slayer!
By Sidney Levesque / Reporter-News Staff Writer August 25, 2005
COLEMAN - Was the strange creature recently killed in this West Texas town a bloodsucking monster called a chupacabra?
Or a coyote with a bad case of mange?
Whatever it is, it's causing a big stir in Coleman, a city of 5,100 or so people 52 miles south of Abilene. In fact, the last time an animal caused this much talk was five years ago, when a Dallas-area hunter shot and killed a monkey on a nearby ranch.
''That was no organ-grinder monkey,'' the hunter told the Abilene Reporter-News at the time. ''That was a monkey that could grind your organs.''
To this day, people still aren't sure how the monkey came to be in Coleman.
Residents involved with the recent creature are hesitant to talk about how it died because of the backlash Coleman received from animal-rights activists after the monkey debacle.
Several weeks ago, the creature became a menace to Reginald Lagow, 89, and his neighbors. They were finding dead chickens, sometimes two a day. Some chickens were partly eaten, and others were completely gone. There was little blood.
It's not unusual to lose a chicken or so a month to varmints like foxes and skunks, Lagow said. But this time, chickens were disappearing rapidly.
Lagow and his neighbor, Carole Burroughs, lost about 30 chickens total.
The creature was quick. Burroughs, 71, never saw it alive, even though it hunted during the day. Lagow tried to catch it in traps, but the animal was too smart, he said.
Lagow saw it catch one of the last of his chickens, but it scampered away before he could get close. He said it had rusty-colored hair and it looked unlike anything he had ever seen.
Finally, on Aug. 9 a neighbor's dog cornered the creature in a chicken coop and the man shot it. Lagow snapped pictures of the animal's body.
The creature looked like a small dog with white hair like a shorn lamb. Lagow who picked it up, said it weighed 12 to 13 pounds. The animal was put in the trash.
But Lagow kept a picture of it in his pocket.
''I had no idea it was going to be something that would stir up the water like it did,'' he said.
He began showing the picture around, asking what people thought about it. The veterinarian down the road, Dr. Johnny Needham, told him he had seen this creature before.
Needham said it reminded him of similar animals found in San Antonio and Conroe. Some people thought the dog-like, hairless animals were chupacabras, a mythical Mexican animal.
Descriptions of the creature vary, from a lizard-like animal to one with quills running down its back. It is said to hop like a kangaroo.
The animal killed in Coleman did have long back legs and a lengthy, thin tail.
However, the animal from San Antonio was later found to be a coyote with mange. And animal experts are saying that's probably what the Coleman animal is, too.
West Texas has coyotes, which eat small animals. Sometimes coyotes and dogs get mites that cause skin irritation. Chunks of fur will fall out and the animal will scratch, causing scabs.
But the Coleman creature had no hair and did not appear to have scabs, giving rise to Needham's theory that the animal had a kind of condition called ''demodectic'' mange. The mite that causes this is spread from mothers to puppies.
The mites burrow into the hair follicles, preventing hair from growing. Severe itching does not occur. Some animals are genetically predisposed to this condition, Needham said.
''If it's not that, I have no clue what it is,'' the veterinarian said.
Lagow isn't convinced the creature was simply a coyote with mange. It didn't look like any coyote he'd ever seen.
Burroughs said she's still not sure what it was.
The local newspaper, The Coleman Chronicle & Democrat-Voice, has been inundated with phone calls from curious residents wanting to know what the creature is. The newspaper's official stance: a coyote with mange.
''Bigfoot has not landed in Coleman County,'' joked co-publisher Stan Brudney.
Two area residents claim they, too, have seen a similar creature.
One rancher told the Coleman newspaper he killed one last year. Another resident said he spotted a similar animal recently in northern Coleman County.
Maybe there are more Coleman creatures out there.
The local newspaper is handling its coverage carefully because of the monkey incident. At that time, the Chronicle & Democrat-Voice ran a front-page picture of the hunter holding up the monkey's severed head. The gruesome image didn't sit well with some residents.
''It's been interesting,'' Brudney said of the latest animal caper. ''We're taking our time with this one.''
What is a chupacabra?
A mythical creature associated with Mexico whose name means ''goat sucker'' in Spanish. It supposedly kills livestock and drains their blood. Pronounced ''chew-paw-cob-ruh.''
No pictures PLEASE!
I would not contaminate my hard drive.
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