By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
CROSWELL — The culprit in the death of a horse Sunday south of this Sanilac County town wasn’t a cougar, coyote or any animal, according to state Department of Natural Resources officials.
“We’ve determined that the injury to the horse was not caused by an animal, either wild or domestic,” said Don Bonnette, a wildlife biologist based in Bay City, speaking to the Tuscola County Advertiser on Friday.
“We’ve come to the conclusion basically that whatever caused the injury is undetermined, but the only thing we can rule out are animals,” Bonnette said. “The wound is just too clean and, really, just very, very uncharacteristic of anything an animal would do. So we have to leave it at that. If it’s not an animal, that’s when we step out of the picture from a DNR perspective.”
The Sanilac County Sheriff’s Office posted a June 1 Facebook message about the attack on the horse, stating the animal was killed “by a large animal.” The Facebook post urged residents to “Please be vigilant and watch your animals and children outside.”
The message drew hundreds of comments and prompted news articles, but the veterinarian examining the horse determined the wound “wasn’t like a coyote type (wound) where the coyote tears the flank out, and a cougar or a cat usually goes for the neck,” said Sanilac County Sheriff Garry Biniecki.
Online commenters speculated the attacker could be a cougar, a Sasquatch or a large dog. Fear ran high among some Croswell-area residents for several days following the Facebook announcement, according to Mark Duff, owner of Duffy’s Derby convenience store in Croswell.
“One lady was afraid to let her kids out in the yard,” Duff said. “It’s died down some now, though. They don’t know if it was a dog or a barbed-wire fence. It doesn’t sound like it was a cougar, anyway.”
Russ Mason, chief of the state Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division, said the veterinarian reported to the DNR that the injury to the horse was consistent with “the kind of thing that he or she had seen before with an animal running into a fence.”
The horse’s leg was partially severed and the horse, named Bo, was bleeding from an artery when it was found, according to a Facebook post by Natoshia Lace Lunney, identifying herself as “the daughter of the owner of the farm in question.”
The horse died after being rushed to an equine hospital for emergency surgery, according to the Facebook post. Lunney went on the say “Animal control has investigated and has placed traps, there are cameras set up, and our other horses are on lockdown.”
Coyotes are known to be in the area where the apparent attack took place near the intersection of Black River and Burns Line roads, according to Sanilac County Animal Control Officer Jim Matson. Some Sanilac County residents prepared to defend themselves.
A post from Richard Mater stated “You can bet if I see one of my pets or livestock being attacked, I will shoot to kill. Could care less what the law says. You have the right to defend yourself, or protect your livestock no matter what they say is protected or not.”
Sheriff Biniecki said “We got in the middle of this … because the (horse owner) wanted something posted on Facebook and thinks there was something out there, and I think emotion just took off from there.”