Unexplained Cow Mutilations have Wasco County Ranchers Asking Questions

Clint Johnson, 28, an Oregon State Saddle Bronc Champ, and dad Doug Johnson, 66, came upon quite a mystery a week ago as they found their Black Angus cow mutilated on their Ranch in Southern Wasco County - 20 miles north of Madras. The dead cow can be seen in the background. It was a first for the two cowboys. But more than a dozen such mutilation cases have cropped up during the past two years in Eastern Oregon.

WARNING - This story contains images and descriptions that could be disturbing to readers and viewers. Reader discretion is advised.

By Tom Peterson

A cow mutilation in Wasco County has rancher Doug Johnson shaking his head.

Not only about the monetary loss of his four-year-old heifer and the calf he now has to bottle feed, but also in the way the animal was killed.

His son Clint found the Black Angus cow at about 4 p.m. on March 28th while checking on the herd at their ranch in Cow Canyon. The ranch lies three miles off Highway 97, 20 miles north of Madras. 

Clint Johnson took this photo of the cow’s head after he discovered it. He and his father pointed to the straight cuts to the hide and lack of blood from the animal. Natural causes? They don’t think so.

Clint was riding his ATV when he saw the cow laying on its side.

When he approached, things got weird, he said.

A straight cut appeared to have been used to remove the cows lips and jaw, and hide around its mouth, the tongue and lips were also gone. And the left eye was removed, again with the hide around the socket also missing - and all done with apparent precision. 

The cow had been lying dead for maybe two days, he said.

“Wolves, coyotes?” 

Doug Johnson bottle feeds “E.T.” in a coral next to his home. The calf was orphaned when its mother was recently mutilated on a hill three miles from the Johnson’s house.

“No animal did this,” Doug Johnson said, noting none of the flesh was torn or parts left ripped apart. No blood could be seen on the animal.

On further inspection, Clint found a portion of the cow's front left leg, its udder, reproductive organs and rectum had also been removed - again without any rips or tears.

The animal’s carotid artery in the neck had been cut, and a cow that size was liable to have four plus gallons of blood. But there was no blood on the ground to be found. 

On March, 30th, Doug and Clint Johnson took CCCNews to the site of the animal. 

Doug grabbed the front right leg of the cow as well as the back and showed how it could pivot around easily, noting heavy damage to the skeletal structure within the animal. He said the legs would be stiff under normal circumstances. And yet, there was no sign of a struggle on the Medusahead grass and shallow dirt of the hill the animal laid on.

He speculated that the animal was dropped from a great height to the ground to do that much damage.

Coyotes and birds had not fed on the carrion as they normally had in Johson’s past observations of other deceased cows. 

“They won’t go near it,” he said, noting his own dog avoided the animal. “Usually, he’d be rolling in it.”  

No tracks from a vehicle. No shoe or boot prints, Johnson said.

Wasco County Sheriff’s office responded and investigated the report on Monday, March 29th. But no leads or evidence were discovered.

Doug Johnson points to the missing portion of the Cow’s front leg and the udder removal done to the Black Angus. The four-year-old heifer was worth $1,600 and had several years left of breeding left. But that was before they found it dead and missing its reproductive organs, tongue, lips and udder removed. Cause? Remains unknown.

“It’s hard when there is no evidence of anything to make sense of it,” said Sgt. Jeff Hall, with Wasco County Sheriff’s Office on Monday, April 5th.  

“I don’t think it was done by humans,” Johnson said. “I’ll tell you why. It’s too remote an area to walk in to.”

He said the parts of the cow that were taken could be easily purchased at a rendering plant, so why would someone do this? 

“There are no signs of a vehicle, and it has happened all over different parts of Oregon,” he said.

It sounds crazy, but it's not

In fact, a dozen bovine, bulls and cows, have been reported mutilated - most often with tongue and reproductive organs removed - during the past two years, according to news and police reports: 

• Five bulls were killed at Silvies Valley Ranch near Burns in the summer of 2019 in Harney County.

• Rancher David Hunt, near Fossil, reported two animals mutilated in Wheeler County in 2020 and 2019.

• A cow was reported mutilated in Ukiah on Sept. 12, 2020.

• Brian Thompson reported a cow mutilated in Morrow County in December 2020.

• Several cattle were just mutilated in Crook County in early March 2021. Authorities are not saying how many, but at minimum, it is three if not more.

• And now the Johson’s cow in Wasco County.

Rancher David Hunt near Fossil found his cow, above, dead and mutilated in July 2020, with her tongue, genitals and reproductive organs cut out.

“Her carcass was found upright, front legs tucked underneath, a position investigators say they haven’t seen before,” according to a news report by By Sierra Dawn McClain of the Capital Press

“She died in a position she couldn’t have gotten into by herself. I don’t have any kind of logical explanation for it,” said David Hunt in the Capital Press story. Photo Courtesy Wheeler County Sheriff’s Office

The cost of the carnage is in the tens of thousands of dollars as a prize bull alone can be worth $6,000 or more.

It’s serious stuff.

In 2019, The Silvies Valley Ranch put up a $25,000 reward for information on the bull killings that leads to an arrest and conviction, and the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association offered its own $1,000 reward.

No reward has been issued.

Earlier this month, Crook County authorities asked ranchers to be vigilant after several cattle were mutilated.

“This area is very rural ranch land, as well as public BLM land,” Undersheriff James Savage said in a Crook County Sheriff’s Office news release. “The cause of these cattle deaths were not natural and are under investigation.”

In Wheeler County, Deputy Jeremiah Holms, said he had no leads in the two Fossil cases, but held out hope for a break in the case in Crook County.

“Those animals were found a little fresher,” he said.

“Right now it’s an ongoing investigation, said Crook County Deputy Javier Sanchez. “Once we’ve exhausted all our leads we can release more information.”

Headscratcher?

“Yeah it is,” Sanchez said. 

The case recalls mutilations of livestock across the West and Midwest in the 1970s that struck fear in rural areas, the Associated Press reported in a story about the bull mutilations near Burns in Harney County in 2019. “Thousands of cattle and other livestock were found dead with the reproductive organs, and sometimes part of their faces, removed, in territory ranging from Minnesota to New Mexico,” AP reported.

Reports of dead animals in similar condition have been reported in South America, Australia and Europe.

Back in Wasco County, Johnson, 66, said he had been running cattle for decades. And he remembers those mutilations from the ‘70s. He knew a rancher in Underhill, Wash., who had a cow mutilated during the same time period.

“It went on for a long time, and then it seemed to stop for a while,” he said. “Looks like it’s started again.”

Forty years ago, “Ranchers began carrying guns. Folks said helicopters had been heard around the kill sites. A federal agency canceled an inventory by helicopter of its lands in Colorado, worried that it would get shot down,” the Associated Press reported. 

“A couple of U.S. senators urged the FBI to investigate, according to FBI documents. After saying it lacked jurisdiction, the FBI agreed to investigate cases on tribal lands. But the mutilations stopped. Former FBI agent Kenneth Rommel, who headed the investigation, said there was no indication that anything other than common predators were responsible,” according to the AP story.

FBI Involved In current cases?

On Monday, two spokespersons at the FBI in Portland would neither confirm nor deny whether the agency was investigating recent mutilation cases in Oregon. They would not give their names.
A quick internet search on cow mutilations turns up multiple theories for their occurrence, including natural bloating, tearing and predators, cults and extraterrestrials.

“If it’s not humans or animals then what,” Johnson asked. “Something killed it.”

“I asked the baby calf if it saw anything, but it won’t tell me,” Johnson said laughing. “I gave it crayons so it could draw a picture for me.”

“…Nothing yet.”