Scientists Say 'Chupacabras' An Ordinary Female Dog
Managua, Nicaragua — A team of university scientists has ruled that a mysterious skeleton recovered in northern Nicaragua is that of an ordinary dog rather than the feared and fabled chupacabras, a sort of Latin American cross between the Abominable Snowman and Count Dracula, which is said to suck the blood out of livestock.[Original headline: Much-feared skeleton turns out to be dog]
Discovery of the bones last week set off an uproar that had one Nicaraguan churchman warning that the end of the world was at hand, while journalists called from as far away as Australia in frantic search of details.
But biologists and zoologists from the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua campus in Leon who examined the skeleton said it was not a cross between a wolf and a crocodile, as some local agricultural officials had described it, but simply a dog.
"It's a dog, without any room for doubt," said Edmundo Torres, an UNAN vice rector. "It's an ordinary female dog. All our investigations didn't show any anomaly. It's a dog."
His explanation didn't sit well with Jose Luis Talavera, the farmer who claims to have shot the beast and could now lose his international notoriety as a Chupacabras Slayer.
"That animal that was discovered in that rural zone was different from a mere dog," insisted Talavera. "Its teeth were rose-colored. It reared up on its hind legs and sucked the blood from at least 120 sheep."
Talavera discovered the skeleton Aug. 28 in the mouth of a cave near his farm outside Malpaisillo, a rural town about 45 miles northwest of Managua, after he spotted a flock of buzzards circling the site. He says it is the remains of an animal he spotted attacking his sheep three days earlier.
Talavera and other farmers say more than 100 sheep have been killed in the Malpaisillo area during the past six weeks and their bodies drained of blood.
The killings have given rise to rumors that a chupacabras — the Spanish word means literally "goat-sucker" — was on the loose in northern Nicaragua.
Farmers near Malpaisillo began carrying rifles. A local feminist group that has encouraged women to achieve financial independence by raising sheep hinted darkly that the chupacabras had been unleashed by a Nicaraguan patriarchy terrified at the prospect of losing power. The daily El Nuevo Diario quoted several local residents who believed the chupacabras was working for a political party seeking to influence November elections.
Protestant churchman Francisco Ortiz, discarding those explanations as mundane, said the chupacabras was nothing less than "a wake-up call" signaling the end of the world.
"The light is yellow, but it could change to red at any moment," said Ortiz. "It's a signal to men and women that we're going home to God." Ortiz allowed, though, that the chupacabras simply could be a clone created by a mad scientist.
• Story originally published by •
Lawrence Journal-World / KA - September 5 2000
