Update on Possible Cougar Attack

[Carol]

UPDATE: The DNR is waiting for a necropsy to determine if a cougar was responsible for a fatal horse attack outside Deerfield.

UPDATED Wednesday, December29, 2010 -- 9:17pm
By Zac Schultz

Town of Deerfield: The DNR is downplaying the possibility a cougar attacked and killed a horse in the Town of Deerfield Wednesday afternoon.

But the owners of the stable and the owners of the horses believe an animal attack of some kind is what caused this gory death.

Paulette Stelpflug was on her way to Freedom Stables this afternoon when she got a call from a worker that a horse had been killed.

When she arrived she found Phoebe, a 4-year-old Palomino, on the side of the driveway with her throat ripped out. "It was very graphic, very horrific. The horses were a bit agitated."

It appears the horse suffered the injury in the pasture. She went over the fence and down a slope before falling in the driveway.

Rene Reynolds is the horse's veterinarian. He says horses will sometimes cut themselves on machinery, but never this deep. "It's a severe laceration of the jugular and the carotid and the trachea. It looks like it was all at once, as in one swipe or blow and we can't find any fence posts of any items that could have caused it."

That's why Paulette and others suspect it was a cougar. "I know that there's people that have reported cougars in the area."

She thinks the evidence is in the snow. "I think those tracks are rather suspicious. They're big and you can see the pokey marks that are possibly a claw."

"This is a unique print right here. It's circular in nature," says Reynolds, pointing at a print a few yards away from where the horse was first cut.

A number of DNR wardens and specialists were on the scene to look for prints. According to Barbara Wolf, DNR Warden Supervisor for the Southcentral Region, they found nothing conclusive, but will return in the daylight to look again.

That doesn't ease Paulette's mind. "I want there to be doubt. Most any horse owner, you're not going to sleep at night if you think that there's a predator that's going to get your horse, because they're family."

The horse will undergo a necropsy tomorrow, where a vet will hopefully be able to determine if the injury was caused by an animal or something else.

According to Wolf there has not been a confirmed cougar attack on a domestic animal in Wisconsin that she knows of.

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Posted Wednesday, December 29, 2010 -- 7:27pm
By Zac Schultz

Town of Deerfield: The DNR is investigating whether it was a cougar that attacked and killed a horse this afternoon in eastern Dane County.
Early Wednesday afternoon a worker at Freedom Stables in the Town of Deerfield found the horse dead on the side of the driveway.

The horse's throat had been torn out and it bled to death. At first the owner of the stable thought the horse might have impaled itself on a fence post or machinery, but then they found animal tracks that look like a large cat.

The owner of the stables called the DNR and a warden is investigating whether it was a cougar.

The warden would only say they were hoping to find a good tracks before the rain washes away the evidence.

[Carol]

Video Here

http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/112635884.html

[matt1336]

I've never seen a cougar print. But I'm not sure what else could've made the print that was in the snow.

[adrenalin]

Remember the steers that were killed in hartford a little while ago. I know the guys brother that owns the farm. The owner of the farm knows it was a cougars because of the tracks left and other evidence. The dnr told him one of the other steer killed them. Caniblistic steers hey. It just so happen the guy I know has trail came pictures of a cougar with a radio collar on it. Their was alot more interesting info he had but I probably shouldn't say here. Let's just say all you guys that don't believe the dnr is trying to build a wolf and cougar population in wisconsin, think again theres stuff going on you would be shocked about.

[BackWoodsHunter]

Well if the DNR says they aren't here can I shoot one? No better proof to those "non believers" than a dead one!!!