What happened on the night of May 1 in Zadvortsy near Brest does not fit into the usual framework. There is simply nothing other than a visit from the mysterious "Chupacabra" to explain the night out in the barn.
The hostess Nina asks not to indicate her address and not to give a photo in order to avoid the pilgrimage of the curious, but she agreed to show the place of the incident. The courtyard of the house is well-groomed, and there were animals … before the arrival of the uninvited guest. 21 rabbits and 3 cats - this is the list of victims of an unidentified animal. It is difficult to judge what kind of creature it is.
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- How could it get the rabbits out of the cages on the "third floor"? Height 2 meters! - Nina is surprised. - And leave no traces? Take out a hefty rabbit through the narrow door, but they couldn't push it out with their hands …
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Move on. On the neighboring cage, you can clearly see the imprint not only of the teeth, but of the whole jaw! The tracks are quite deep. Inside the cage, the little rabbit hole turned into a gaping hole. All metal mesh is on the cages and is unlikely to be repaired.
- It seems that "it" understood that it was necessary to lift the lid, - the hostess cannot bear it. - Just the way we do it … Two dogs in the morning looked guilty, as if they wanted to say: what could we do?
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But the most amazing thing is how the predator gutted two dozen rabbits. There was no wool around, not a drop of blood. The insides are "taken out", and nothing more. The same thing happened with the three unfortunate cats. All the victims are evenly stacked by the stranger in two heaps.
Found only two or three tracks. They are larger than those of a dog, and they differ in shape.
The owners did not contact either the police or the Ministry of Emergency Situations, they do not want unnecessary emotions and trouble. Only in one surviving cage has a rabbit settled again. Friends gave it to somehow soften the shock.
There are a lot of options who did this - from humans to wolverines (predatory mammal of the weasel family). But none of them explains the deaths of the three cats. To catch them at the same time or one by one and "eat" - for this the beast needs to have some kind of superpowers.
Recently, the media have been talking about the visits of the animal-killer "Chupacabra". Really got to Brest? The peasant neighbors in the Backyard are ready to take the pitchfork and be on duty at night. There are many poultry in the sheds. But while she is not interested in "Chupacabra"
The comment of Viktor Demyanchik, Deputy Director for Research of the Polesie Agrarian and Ecological Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus:
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- The Belarusian ecological folklore allowed the phenomenon of “chupacabra” a long time ago. And there were grounds for this. We are now continuing to work with European experts to identify the species of a very strange hybrid between a jackal and a feral dog. The named hybrid is distinguished by the aggressiveness and intelligence of a jackal. The animal is strong, large, in strength only slightly inferior to the wolf, but in terms of resourcefulness, adaptability to humans, it has no equal. He is able to steal not only a chicken and go unnoticed, but also a sheep and a goat. And there are such facts.
Such a case may be associated with a sharp increase in the number of martens. In their biology, they must have very large areas and then specialize in their original natural food. But when the number of individuals grows, they are forced to switch to other foods. Currently, martens rushed to settlements. Even old-timers won't remember that.
We consider this to be one of the most serious problems. Previously, martens were a profitable commercial type of game, now there is no such thing, it became not interesting to hunt animals, and this contributed to an immoderate increase in their number. A marten can easily eat not only a bird, but also a rabbit or a cat. Moreover, some of them began to "specialize" in the individual organs of their victims.
Unlike the ferret, which mainly walks on the ground, the marten can run over the top, climb through the chimney, ventilation hatch, and climb through the gap. In the pine marten, with a high density of individuals, the instinct for aggressiveness increases. And they see in a cat not a potential food, but a potential competitor who is on their territory. And strong males tightly control their territory, they try to remove competitors.
And even a small weasel, whose weight ranges from forty grams, can strangle a rabbit. She has a well-developed predatory instinct, she cuts arteries, veins and thus kills. And the rabbit is such a meek creature that it is even afraid of a rat.
As for the wolverine, it became extinct in Polesie during the First World War. After that, I have not met anywhere. And in general in Europe it is an endangered species.