Monday, December 15, 2008

Cat or Chupa?

On each and every one of the various occasions I traveled to Puerto Rico in search of the vampire-like Chupacabras, I heard tales that at least some of the attacks attributed to the beast were, in fact, the work of big-cats roaming the island.

Of course, Puerto Rico has no indigenous big-cats in its midst; however, when I visited the island with Jon Downes in 2004, we were told several stories of people who allegedly owned big-cats that had grown too big to handle, and that were said to have been released undercover of darkness into Puerto Rico's El Yunque rain-forest.

And, with this new story of a possible big-cat on the loose on the island, it seems the tales may indeed have a firm foundation in fact.

I should stress that this doesn't mean I dismiss all Chupacabras attacks as the work of far more conventional predators. Rather, my own conclusion is that the Chupacabras is merely a significant part of the unusual animal killings on Puerto Rico; and that other cases - such as those cited in the news article above - need to be addressed on their own merits.

No comments: