The attack prompted Ontario Provincial Police to issue a public warning to cattle and pet owners of “an animal of unknown nature” in the area on Wednesday.
Several neighbours reported seeing a “large, black animal” roaming around town on Monday evening.
Moments after the warning was issued, Leslie says the animal returned to the barn around 2 p.m. As it matched his neighbours’ descriptions, he wasted no time in killing the canine.
“I don’t like (shooting animals), but if that’s the animal that did this then it had to be put down,” said Leslie. “It’s dangerous not just to other animals; it’s dangerous to people.”
Leslie, who was born and raised on the farm, said he’d never witnessed a livestock attack of that scale in the area.
Mike Martin, a local canine expert and trainer, inspected the animal’s corpse and said its size corresponded with the attack. He believed it to be a cross between a dog, such as a German shepherd or a husky, and a wolf.
Leslie said his calves— all in the 300 lb. range— were killed by a “large animal” that he believes was a wolf or big dog.
Eight of the calves were killed outside in the yard beside the barn at his Winston Churchill Blvd. farm, and six younger calves that were in a pen inside the barn were also killed. The calves were all three to six months old.He said the dead calves had bite marks and whatever killed them, didn’t eat them. It appeared one of the calves inside the barn jumped up and through an open window to get away from the attack, but unfortunately it was killed outside.
“This is an animal that’s dangerous. If it’s taking down this many animals there’s something wrong with this animal’s head,” said Leslie earlier in the day. “If it’s taking down calves, it could take down a human.”
While the animal will be tested for rabies, Martin doesn’t believe that rabies is the reason for the attack. Instead, it might have been a matter of survival.
The animal was found with a collar on and was malnourished, according to Martin, leading him to believe that it was not a wild animal. If the attack was by a coyote or a wolf, it would have known how to kill the cattle immediately, he said.
The animal didn’t know how to bring the cows down, which is why it went into a “frenzy and kept going until there was nothing left.”
All the animal was trying to do was hunt, he said. But, he didn’t know how to do it, which explains how the cattle were killed and why they had so many scratches and bite marks.
Leslie was milking his cattle in another barn about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday before the dead calves were discovered and he spotted what looked like a “big, black wolf” in the field. He said its back was waist-high.
After milking the cattle he went to Toronto for an appointment and only learned the calves had been killed when a friend found them and called him after 10 a.m.
“It was quite shocking,” Leslie said of the gruesome scene in the barn.
Fortunately six of his calves survived.
“There are a lot of tracks in the yard,” said Leslie, adding there was electric fencing around the yard.
“It would have jumped to get over the fence or over a five-foot gate,” Leslie said.
Leslie operates a couple farms on Winston Churchill, the farm where the calves were killed is located on the east side, in Caledon, just north of Mayfield Rd.
Caledon Animal Control, meanwhile, said the attack was not believed to be a wildlife-related incident.
The distinction means that Leslie won’t receive money via the Ontario Wildlife Compensation Program, which compensates livestock owners for losses attributable to attacks by wild species.
Leslie estimates the dollar value of the loss between $10,000 and $15,000, but that is not what he and his wife Kim are most concerned about.
“It’s a deeper loss,” said Kim. “You can’t put a price on it, you just can’t replace it.”
She said the calves were born as part of their breeding program and were the offspring of their purebred registered Holstein cattle. They were born and raised on the farm and in a couple years time would have been in the Leslie’s milking barn.
Leslie said he spoke to neighbours about the incident and some reported they had seen a “big, black animal” believed to be a wolf or dog in the area.
Leslie said one neighbour nearly hit a “big, black wolf” about 7:50 a.m. Tuesday on Winston Churchill Blvd.
There had been reported sightings of a cougar in the Norval area earlier this year, and the MNR said at the time it was investigating the presence of cougars in Ontario.
(Orangeville Banner - Nov 15, 2012)
