A18
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Moviemaker
Continued from Page A1
Contributed photo
‘Hunger Ward’ by Skye Fitzgerald was nominated for an Academy Award in
the short documentary category.
Mutilations
Continued from Page A1
one of his herd had been dis-
covered dead two days ear-
lier with an odd cut down its
spine.
Shannon, who lives on
the ranch with his two sons,
reported no predators or birds
had touched the cow. There
were no tracks, and no blood
surrounding it. The cow’s left
cheek, tongue and three of
its teats had been cut away
cleanly. But the eyes, usu-
ally the fi rst body part to be
scavenged after death, were
untouched. There were no bul-
let holes, and a scan of the cow
by a metal detector turned up
none.
The cow was about 200
yards from the road, near the
edge of a fi eld and some juni-
per trees. There were no vehi-
cle tracks near the dead ani-
mal, no footprints of any kind.
The mystery deepened a
few days later. On March 4,
Casey Thomas, manager of
the GI Ranch on Lister Road
in Paulina, reported that one
of his herd of around 5,000
appeared to have suff ered a
strange death.
Crook County detective
Javier Sanchez arrived to fi nd
a deceased Black Angus cow
lying on its side. Hair had
been removed near the stom-
ach. All four teats were cut off
and its left cheek, tongue and
sex organs removed. Between
the front legs an uneven patch
of hair was missing and in the
middle was a prick mark, San-
chez wrote in his report.
The next day, Crook
County Sgt. Timothy Durheim
was dispatched to a report of
a wolf kill at the McCormack
Ranch on Southeast Bear
Creek Road. But it was appar-
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human-caused war,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said he shot the fi lm
over 30 days in January and Febru-
ary last year in Yemen, a west Asian
nation with an ongoing war between
Saudi Arabian-backed pro-govern-
ment forces and the rebel Houthi
movement.
Filming in a confl ict zone was
challenging, especially when the
Saudi coalitions reject journalists and
fi lmmakers in the country. He said his
party was detained in Yemen for seven
hours before being released.
“You have to fi ght very hard and in
nuanced ways to get into the confl ict
zone,” Fitzgerald said. “Once you’re
there you have to work in careful,
delicate ways to keep yourself from
danger.”
Seeing children die was extremely
diffi cult, he said, but the crew wanted
to portray the war authentically —
even if it was hard to watch.
Contributed photo
“To me, it made the project even
more important because it was so Skye Fitzgerald answers audience questions during a screening of his fi lm ‘50
challenging,” Fitzgerald said. “Just Feet From Syria’ at Eastern Oregon University.
because something is hard, it doesn’t
Fitzgerald said, ultimately, suc-
mean that it’s not worthwhile. In some arship awarded to a graduate of Mon-
ways, I believe it’s more rewarding.”
ument High School who is pursuing cess is not tied to where a person
went to school or even innate talent:
Without electricity in Monument, higher education.
Fitzgerald said he did not have a
Despite fewer resources in the It’s about will and a willingness to
chance to learn much about cinema small town, he said there are bene- improve.
The 93rd Academy Awards cere-
and media until he went to college, fi ts as well, such as the extra attention
and his family is helping others dream and interaction that comes with small mony will be aired from 5-8 p.m. Sun-
day, April 25, on ABC.
big through the annual Dream Schol- class sizes.
ent no wolf took down this
cow.
Durheim noted several
straight incisions on the ani-
mal. The udder had been
removed and a circular cut
was made around the anus
and the reproductive organs
removed without puncturing
the gut. The left cheek, left eye
and tongue had been removed.
“Again, I noted straight,
clean incisions where the
cheek had been,” Durheim
wrote in his case report.
Durheim examined the
carcass and found a puncture
wound between the neck and
shoulder. He found no bite
marks.
“There were no apparent
animal or human tracks imme-
diately surrounding the car-
cass, and only minimal blood
in the area,” Durheim wrote.
“I know from personal expe-
rience that, if an animal is
killed or scavenged by preda-
tors, there is typically a large
bloody messy area surround-
ing the carcass.”
On March 6, Casey
Thomas called police back to
report fi nding another dead
cow bearing the same strange
injuries. This one was more
badly decomposed than the
fi rst, but its left cheek was also
removed and a 2-inch patch
had been cut into the hair on
its neck.
Detectives took photos of
the dead cows to Prineville
veterinarian Taylor Karlin for
her perspective. She agreed
the deaths appeared unnatural,
and her opinion was included
in a search warrant request
fi led in the case to scan for
cellphone activity near where
the cows were found.
Charges in any of the cases
could include trespassing and
aggravated animal abuse. With
the cattle valued at $1,250 to
Contributed photo/Fee Stubblefi eld
Photos posted to Fee Stubblefi eld’s Facebook page on Saturday, Sept. 12, show the mutilated cow
he found near Dixie Ranch Road outside of Ukiah earlier that day.
$1,400 each, criminal mis-
chief might also be charged.
As a vet with an inter-
est in large animals, Karlin
has performed many post-
mortem examinations on
deceased livestock. When,
and if, another mutilated cow
turns up in Crook County,
Karlin has agreed to perform
an appropriate necropsy so
she can personally examine a
fresh specimen.
“I wish I had an answer,”
she said. “We’re kind of at a
loss.”
One possible explanation
is these were, in fact, natural
deaths
Podcast host Dunning’s
long-running show Skep-
toid devoted an episode to
debunking cattle mutila-
tion in 2015. Dunning, who
read the 28-page search war-
rant request, called the recent
Crook County case typical
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of numerous accounts often
attributed to aliens or satanic
rituals.
“This is almost certainly
the same kind of bird preda-
tion we’ve seen in so many
similar cases,” he wrote. “In
my opinion, there is nothing
here that suggests anything
but normal and expected bird
predation had occurred, and
... no justifi cation for a search
warrant to seek out an apoc-
ryphal human responsible for
the wounds.”
Dunning said he’s learned
there’s actually a short win-
dow of time between when the
animal dies and when its body
is scavenged when it’s obvi-
ous what killed the animal.
“Most particularly birds,
and also some insects, will
always go fi rst for the exposed
soft tissue: eyes, tongue, lips
and mouth area, genitals. The
animal is dead with zero blood
pressure so there is never sig-
nifi cant bleeding from post-
mortem wounds. The body is
in the process of drying and
decaying, so skin pulls tight
from around the excised area,
giving the impression of a per-
fect surgical cut.”
Karlin is awaiting the
results of liver and blood sam-
ples she’s sent away for lab
testing. Police have sent hair
samples to the state crime
lab on the chance they don’t
belong to the bovine.
Last year, the FBI in Ore-
gon started receiving ques-
tions about cattle mutilations
in Central and Eastern Ore-
gon, according to Beth Anne
Steele, spokesperson for
the FBI Portland offi ce. But
despite sporadic media inqui-
ries, the offi ce does not have a
current role in the cattle muti-
lation investigations, Steele
wrote.
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