Todmorden, UK (2020) Calf Mutilation With Photos

[Paul_Exeter]

Warning: graphic images of the deceased calf as found by walkers:

"Sunday, the 5th of July 2020, was a beautiful day in West Yorkshire. Albert Tyas and his girlfriend, Hannah Firth, decided to spend the day out walking in Todmorden. They parked close to the Shepherd’s Rest Inn, on Lumbutts Road and set off for a walk around Gaddings Dam, a nearby disused reservoir originally built in 1833.

Not far into the walk, they noticed what they at first thought was a dead sheep. As they moved closer, they quickly realised that it was actually a male calf, approximately 3 - 4 months old. Possibly a Jersey, Dexter dunn or Limousin breed."

Read on:

https://anomalous-eye.medium.com/todmorden-calf-mutilation-5th-july-2020-67f6e6cd27c

This is the same the town where PC Alan Godfrey had his now-famous UFO encounter

 

[Spookdaddy]

The damage to the tail and jaw reminded me of something I read not long ago.

Although this is not the source I was thinking of, it relates to exactly the same subject: Dog attacks.

Source - North Wales Live - Calf suffered 'horrendous' injuries in attack by dog

Calf suffered 'horrendous' injuries in attack by dog - and farmer fears what it could do next

Farmer pleads with dogowners to keep their pets on leads in wake of horrific attack in Gwynedd

...

These graphic images show the aftermath of a dog attack on a calf which then had to be destroyed.

Farmer Alan Humphreys is pleading with owners to keep their dogs on leads to prevent such horrific maulings in future.

He has reported the incident, which came to light at Twll Coed Farm in Tan yr Allt in Dyffryn Nantlle on Tuesday morning, to North Wales Police.

...

Mr Humphreys said: "My calf was attacked by a large dog. It's had part of its tail off and dislocated its jaw. There are teeth marks over its back. It's quite horrendous.

"I've got lambs in two fields due to go to market next month. If this dog gets into those fields, God help them.

"It's common that dogs attack sheep, but to take down a calf is rare. I have never heard of it happening."

He said a neighbour had spotted an Alsatian-type dog apparently loose at 8.30am on Tuesday morning.

When Mr Humphreys' son went to check on the animals at about 1.45pm, he discovered the seriously injured calf.

Mr Humphreys himself had been away but returned at about 4pm.

"We phoned the vet and he said its jaw was broken," he said.

Owing to the extent of the male calf's injuries, the decision was made to have the calf destroyed. It had been a Welsh Black cross bullock and was about three or four months old.

It's notable that although the injuries are not identical, the two areas where most damage is apparent appear to be the same.

 

[maximus otter]

Warning: graphic images of the deceased calf as found by walkers:

"Sunday, the 5th of July 2020, was a beautiful day in West Yorkshire. Albert Tyas and his girlfriend, Hannah Firth, decided to spend the day out walking in Todmorden. They parked close to the Shepherd’s Rest Inn, on Lumbutts Road and set off for a walk around Gaddings Dam, a nearby disused reservoir originally built in 1833.

Not far into the walk, they noticed what they at first thought was a dead sheep. As they moved closer, they quickly realised that it was actually a male calf, approximately 3 - 4 months old. Possibly a Jersey, Dexter dunn or Limousin breed."

Read on:

https://anomalous-eye.medium.com/todmorden-calf-mutilation-5th-july-2020-67f6e6cd27c

This is the same the town where PC Alan Godfrey had his now-famous UFO encounter

l’m seeing nothing that suggests anything other than natural predation, probably on a calf that died of natural causes. l’d imagine that a dog attack would have left obvious injuries to the back legs, where the attacker would seize the quarry to bring it down.

“Vultures, eagles, ravens, magpies, and many species of birds can feed on corpses [4, 5, 39, 62, 76, 77]. Birds primarily tend to feed on eyes of the corpses. This condition may lead to misinterpretations by crime scene investigators as a sadistically committed crime or ritual mutilation performed on the corpse [17]. Scavenger birds as magpies and crows peck and tear the corpse during feeding, which causes characteristic triangle-shaped holes on the corpse [76]. Dettling et al. [78] demonstrated unusual patched areas of epidermal lesions on naked unclothed parts of a dead woman caused by scavenging activity of songbird characterized by “pecking and dragging.” In another case, loss of eye globe and earlobe due to crow feeding was reported [79]. Variations in beak morphologies of birds may cause different lesions. Vultures and falcons may leave wounds with smooth contours resembling surgical cuts after plucking the skin [76]. Birds can tear away intact skin, but they primarily prefer to feed on the places where skin integrity is disrupted or eroded. If the corpse is exposed to penetrating trauma during perimortem period, then birds frequently focus on this injured region, and a large round hole may occur due to feeding…”

https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/58532

People make much of “no blood was found at the scene”, but predation/dissection of an animal already dead from disease, exposure etc. wouldn’t result in much, if any, blood being spilt.

maximus otter

 

[Aether Blue]

It's also worth adding that most scavengers prefer juicy and soft body parts over dehydrated skin or muscle. Eyes, tongues, genitals, and visceral organs all fall into this category, and thus tend to disappear quickly.

It might seem unlikely that scavengers would reach into a body cavity to pick out the goodies, but in areas frequented by humans a sizable fraction of the scavengers consist of rodents perfectly capable of climbing right into corpses through small holes.

 

[Spookdaddy]

...l’d imagine that a dog attack would have left obvious injuries to the back legs, where the attacker would seize the quarry to bring it down...

I wondered about this, but searching for dog attacks on cattle online (I don't think I'll provide any specific links - the images are really pretty horrible, and anyone who wants can find them) there seems to be lots of evidence of damage to tails and hind quarters, and also the face and head areas of cattle.

I don't see that much evidence of leg damage on these other images, and I'd always assumed that predators go for the rump on large prey, hooking on and using bodyweight to drag it down, thereby avoiding the legs, which - aside from horns, if they have them - are about the only weapon a bovine has. (This is the classic lion method on larger prey - as far as I know they only go for the legs on smaller animals, slapping them out from under them as they run, rather than actually biting at them.)

That said, I do think there's a strong argument for this being the result of post-mortem predation (the best evidence against this being a dog attack might be the apparent lack of bite marks anywhere else on the body).

...Vultures and falcons may leave wounds with smooth contours resembling surgical cuts after plucking the skin [76]. Birds can tear away intact skin, but they primarily prefer to feed on the places where skin integrity is disrupted or eroded. If the corpse is exposed to penetrating trauma during perimortem period, then birds frequently focus on this injured region, and a large round hole may occur due to feeding…”

I think this is probably a huge point of misunderstanding in reports of cattle mutilations. Also - I can't find the name for it just now, I'm pretty sure there is one - but skin around untreated puncture wounds can naturally shrink away from a wound in a way which may give the appearance of a very circular incision (like an ulcer scar). An effect which always seems to elicit the word 'surgical'.

...People make much of “no blood was found at the scene”, but predation/dissection of an animal already dead from disease, exposure etc. wouldn’t result in much, if any, blood being spilt...

This too. Once the heart's stopped pumping then the presence of blood will depend on the nature of post mortem damage - maybe if the killer's a messy eater.

 

[Min Bannister]

People make much of “no blood was found at the scene”, but predation/dissection of an animal already dead from disease, exposure etc. wouldn’t result in much, if any, blood being spilt.

I think it is significant too that the calf was not tagged, lay there for weeks after first being discovered and the farmer had been previously fined and banned from keeping animals. They have also lost other calves to "mutilations".

I agree this calf has died of natural causes and been predated. The reason it seems strange and unusual is because farmers are supposed to check their animals every day and remove and dispose of dead bodies quickly. Most do and so this sort of sight is rare.