Residents of several streets in the urban village of Ivenets are in a panic. For more than a month they have been terrorized by an unknown creature, brutally cracking down on domestic animals at night and disappearing with impunity. Bear? Lynx? Dog? Or maybe a chupacabra again?
The latest version sounds here more and more often and actively fuels fears. The situation is further complicated by the fact that people have to defend themselves solely on their own - not a single instance is ready to provide little help …
No body - no action
It was early morning when 86-year-old Cheslava Fedorovna went to feed the rabbits and was simply stunned with horror. The cells looked as if they were being crushed by a creature of remarkable strength. The footprints on the ground clearly belonged to a rather large animal. How did he manage to bend the iron bars? Open a complex latch bolt?
Two three-kilogram rabbits in the lower cages looked like they were alive, only their eyes were torn out and blood was caked on the ears. Moreover, one carcass ended up in a completely different cage, and the second was found a few meters from the barn. A brood of 10-day old rabbits disappeared without a trace. Fortunately, someone scared the predator away - he did not manage to strangle two rabbits in the upper cages. Later, a tunnel was found under the fence …
Children and grandchildren of Cheslava Fyodorovna, living in Minsk, phoned all sorts of authorities, they knew that a similar case had happened two weeks ago on the neighboring Oktyabrskaya street. But everywhere there is a turn from the gate. The victim's daughter Raisa does not hide her indignation:
- The executive committee says that you need to call the Emergencies Ministry. The rescuers were sent to the prosecutor's office, and there they were told to write a statement in the regional center - Volozhin. The foresters, whose office is just opposite our house, do not care either. What if it's a rabid animal? We must examine! We have children, where is the guarantee that no one will attack them?
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The militiamen, who nevertheless came on call, said: "No human body - no business." True, they advised to remove the remaining rabbits and chickens away, you never know. In the evening of the same day, the evacuation of livestock began to a more durable barn. Just in case, they closed the cats away from trouble. It remained to wait for the morning: will the unknown predator return or not?
We are afraid to go out into the street
It seems that we had no idea the scale of the disaster when, together with Natalia, the granddaughter of Cheslava Fedorovna, we decided to ask the neighbors for details of the Chupacabra's two-week visits. Everyone shared their sorrows and sent them to the next house, where more and more terrible stories awaited us. Some died of chickens, others - a kid, and still others - ducks.
The Kovalenko family lost nine adult rabbits and three small ones. The hostess Olga said that her husband discovered the pogrom at five in the morning: “The cages are wide open, the boards are broken. The tracks are similar to those of a dog. But it was with what force it was necessary to pull out the doors in the cages! We feed, raise, and then something like that … It's scary, we are afraid to go out into the street. What if they run into us? The spouse immediately inserts an important remark: “It was as if a person opened the cells! He tore one up from the bottom, then bent it down, gnawed at the ears and nose of the rabbit … And a week later, the neighbors had the same trouble. They say that something thundered last Saturday night, apparently the mysterious creature was returning.
Their neighbor Nina Konstantinovna is sure that they are dog tracks. Her family was very worried about the loss of 15 rabbits at once, and even a brood of babies. Only one rabbit huddled under the boards, and this saved him. Now the baby is taken care of like the apple of an eye, during the day they are taken to the cage, and at night they are hidden in the barn. Several rabbit skins were found buried in the ground. A clump of wool was found on the fence, and the animal tracks led … to the owner of two dogs, who used to work at a meat processing plant.
True, they refuse to take wool for research, as a result, Nina Konstantinovna receives only formal replies that there is no evidence. And a message appears on the bulletin board that the owners of the dogs need to look after the pets. By the way, not so long ago an emergency occurred in Ivenets: a child who was returning from school was attacked by a dog. The boy lay in intensive care for a long time.
- The district police officer says that it could be a fox, - says Nina Konstantinovna. - But we have no foxes, no wolves, no bears in the forest: I go for a walk with my dog every day. Vietnamese pigs were bred near the forest, and no one touched them. But hunters say that dogs may well behave like this in pairs.
Other victims doubt this version: they say, traces do not prove anything, the dogs could have come running to the smell of meat. Here is the neighbor of the Kovalenko family, who heard the heartbreaking squeak of rabbits at night and tried to wake up the owners, I'm sure: no, this is not a dog.
Too slowly the creature moved, like a bear or a man, silently overcame the fence, and all this time the dogs in the yards were silent, as if they were afraid to give a voice … i”and will calm people down.
Direct speech
Mikhail Nikiforov, General Director of the Scientific and Practical Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus for Bioresources:
- It may well be both stray dogs and wild animals. For example, an old sick fox. Such an animal is not capable of killing anyone in the wild, therefore it attacks the defenseless. As for dogs, they are predators, and it is not a problem for them to cope with rabbits, as well as breaking fragile cages. In this situation, you need to contact local hunters who deal with wild animals and know their habits.