A14
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
Mutilations
Board
Continued from Page A1
Continued from Page A1
This is the fifth case of a
cattle mutilation in Wheeler
County in the past 20 months.
Nearby Harney County has
had five cases in the past four
years, two of which happened
this year, in May and July.
According to FBI records,
it’s not just an Oregon prob-
lem. Since the 1970s, thou-
sands of killings and mutila-
tions of cattle have happened
across the U.S.
The cases, officials say,
usually look “eerily similar”:
A cow or bull is found dead
in a remote area with no indi-
cation of how a suspect might
have gained access to the
property. Typically, no foot-
prints, tire tracks or finger-
prints are found. There’s little
to no spilled blood and no vis-
ible puncture wounds, bullets
or strangulation marks.
In other words: a mystery.
Holmes, the deputy on
Brown’s case, is also the pri-
mary investigator on the four
other recent mutilation cases
in Wheeler County and said
all five cases looked “about
the same.”
The deputy, however,
declined to comment on fur-
ther details about the August
mandate for students who
are not willing to follow the
mask order.
Uptmor asserted in the
letter that the district would
continue to fight for local
control so that the decision
to mandate masks could be
a local one. Until that hap-
pens, he said, the district
would follow the gover-
nor’s mandate.
He writes to the par-
ents that the state’s hos-
pitals are “currently over-
run” with COVID-19
hospitalizations.
“It will be disappoint-
ing if our students are sent
to school with the directive
from parents to not wear a
mask as politics has played
enough of a role in our
schools during this time of
COVID,” he writes.
Uptmor said, while he
wrote the letter, it was not
his intent to offend people in
the community.
“I don’t know yet how I
can take that back and gain
your trust again,” he said,
“but that will be what I’m
working towards.”
Uptmor apologized after
the meeting in a separate let-
ter posted on social media.
One parent told Uptmor,
in the past, she felt “heard
and understood” by him
regardless of if she agreed
with him. She said his letter
stopped that dialogue.
She said he did not reply
to an email she sent him, nor
did the entire board reply to
an email about the closed-
door meeting.
“We are in this dark
here,” she said.
Contributed photo/Clancy Roth
A cow was found dead and mutilated in early 2020 at Bar DR Land and Cattle, a Deschutes County ranch in Hampton.
case, saying he’s tracing some
specific clues and doesn’t
want a suspect to know.
As a hypothetical exam-
ple, if suspects knew he rec-
ognized their tire tracks, they
might ditch their getaway car.
“I’ve got a few leads I need
to look into that I can’t talk
about yet,” said Holmes.
All five recent mutilation
cases in Wheeler County are
still open and under investi-
gation, as are the most recent
five cases in Harney County.
Holmes advises farmers
and the public to be on the
lookout for people or vehi-
cles that appear suspicious
and to write down license
plate numbers and vehicle
descriptions.
In a recent statement,
the Harney County Sheriff’s
Office similarly invited com-
munity members and live-
stock owners “to be vigilant
and watch for suspicious per-
sons or vehicles where live-
stock (are).”
Contributed photo/Wheeler County Sheriff’s Office
Rancher David Hunt found a cow dead and mutilated in July 2020,
with her tongue, genitals and reproductive organs cut out — and
she was placed in an upright position.
Mystery
Continued from Page A1
conclusion about why the cow
died.
Almost the whole of the
cow’s tongue — at least a cou-
ple pounds of flesh — was
missing.
The wound severed two
arteries at the base of the
tongue, and Ratliff said a vet-
erinarian told him that a cow
with that injury would bleed to
death relatively rapidly.
That was the only injury
that happened prior to the
cow’s death, Ratliff said.
The carcass was undis-
turbed with one exception
— birds had pecked out one
eyeball.
He estimated the cow died
either late on Aug. 24 or early
on Aug. 25.
Ratliff said tracking con-
ditions were “phenomenal,”
with a large area of dry, soft
dirt around the carcass.
He didn’t find any predator
tracks, but there were tracks
EO Media Group file photo
Cattle graze in Eastern Oregon.
from deer, elk, mice, squir-
rels and birds. There were also
human boot tracks — presum-
ably from the ranch manager
who found the carcass.
The carcass was near the
upper Fox Creek road, east of
Lookout Mountain in eastern
Baker County.
But Ratliff said the evi-
dence suggests that the cow
sustained the fatal injury on or
near the road, about 100 yards
from where the carcass was
found. That evidence, in the
main, is blood.
Copious quantities of
blood.
“Buckets,” Ratliff said.
There were multiple large
patches of bloody ground,
splashes of blood as high as
5 feet up in nearby trees and
a blood trail between the road
and the carcass.
Ratliff surmises that the
blood was splashed onto the
trees when the cow whipped
her head from side to side after
the injury.
Tracking conditions were
also good at the road, which
was dry and dusty. Ratliff
found ATV tracks on the road,
but, as at the carcass site, no
predator tracks.
Ratliff said, as he cut open
and examined the carcass, he
considered, and in turn dis-
carded, multiple theories
about the cow’s demise.
He initially thought the
cow might have been shot. But
there was no bullet wound —
no wound at all in the hide.
S258712-1
He wondered if the animal
had an internal tumor that had
burst. But the cows’ lungs and
heart appeared to have been
healthy.
The mystery deepened
when Ratliff examined the
jaw and, for the first time,
saw that most of the tongue
was gone.
The wound was jagged,
not the clean cut that a knife or
other sharp implement would
make, he said.
There were no tooth marks
or other evidence of a predator.
Ratliff said he can’t envi-
sion how a person could have
removed such a large section
of the tongue from a living
cow.
Other possible explana-
tions aren’t much more plau-
sible, he said.
Cows do curl their tongues
around plants they’re eating
to rip the food loose, and Rat-
liff speculated that perhaps
the cow’s tongue had been
entwined in vegetation and
ripped that way.
But while that could cause
a small wound, he said it
hardly explains the removal of
most of the tongue.
He also considered the pos-
sibility that the cow’s tongue
was caught in a trap.
Or that the cow bit off its
own tongue.
Except cows don’t have
front teeth on the top of their
jaw — there’s just a hard
plate. (They do have lower
front incisors.)
As for the tongue itself,
Ratliff didn’t find it.
He said he didn’t open the
cow’s stomach, so he can’t say
for certain that the cow didn’t
swallow the tongue.
“I cannot tell you what
caused that cow to lose its
tongue,” Ratliff said.
John Day Educator’s
Association
Cindy Dougharity-Spen-
cer, a teacher at Grant Union
High School and president
of the John Day Educator’s
Association, said the associ-
ation supports teaching and
student learning.
“We support free-
dom,” she said, “but we’re
not going to jeopardize
our livelihoods to violate
mandates.”
According to the gov-
ernor’s mandate, educators
and administrators face stiff
penalties, including losing
their teaching license, for
defying the order.
The
association,
Dougharity-Spencer said,
supports taking preventive
measures, including clean-
ing, testing and wearing face
coverings, but with appro-
priate accommodations.
She told the audience that
the teachers union is work-
ing on how to get accommo-
dations for people who do
not want to vaccinate.
“We don’t want to be the
mask police,” she said. “We
encourage activities that
keep our kids in school, and
our classes open, and every-
one learning. We are try-
ing to work together, but we
are not willing to risk our
licenses to be in violation.”
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