Maimed animal carcasses under investigation

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This article was published 29/03/2017 (3144 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The animal mutilations discovered in southwestern Manitoba this week have not yet prompted RCMP to set up a profiling unit to help identify what type of individual or individuals could be involved.

“We’re not there yet,” Brandon Const. Tyler Schryvers said. “As alarming as it is right now, it’s not re-occurring or a daily thing. But we’re nowhere near that point. We’re still early in the investigation.”

A goat, a miniature pony, three coyotes and a raccoon were all found dead with their ears cut off this week in ditches close to each other along the Souris River, 15 kilometres south of Brandon.

Local residents and animal-protection groups in the area have been unnerved by the grisly discoveries, fearing that the suspected abuse displays a disturbing lack of empathy.

The goat and one of the coyotes had their hind legs tied together. The coyotes were skinned, according to resident Heather Eagle Bears, who found all of the carcasses.

However, a Winnipeg-based clinical and forensic psychologist cautioned not to automatically portray those who might commit such abuse as “the next Jeffrey Dahmer.” Daniel Rothman, of Forensic Psychological Services, didn’t want to speak to the specifics of the mutilations in southwestern Manitoba.

“There’s so much more we don’t know than we know at this point,” he said, but noted that instances of animal abuse are more common than the public would like to believe.

“Violence towards animals is more common than we want it to be,” he said. “We know that over the course of someone’s lifetime, if they’re being honest… about one in three males will tell you at some point in their life have engaged in some form of animal cruelty. So it’s not extremely uncommon.

“A psychologist would become concerned about the behaviour if it’s out of the ordinary and if it repeats over time.

“Obviously, the motive is important to consider,” Rothman added. “If somebody is inflicting harm on another living thing because they get some sort of gratification for doing that, that would be a concerning sign.”

Rothman said it would be “extremely rare” for such a person to engage in only one form of anti-social behaviour, and most cases of animal cruelty “outside the norm” are committed by male adolescents or men in their mid-20’s.

“You’d expect that person to be highly impulsive, to have difficulty delaying gratification,” Rothman said. “You expect that person to be very… thrill-seeking. You’d expect to see signs of callousness and disregard for the feelings and rights of other people.”

Other personality traits of those who have committed repeated acts of animal cruelty could include: lying, stealing, breaking and entering, vandalism, running away from home and aggression with other people. “That’s the cluster of characteristics you might be inclined to see,” the psychologist added.

But Rothman disputed the commonly held belief that animal cruelty is an indicator of psychopathic tendencies.

“It’s still a slim possibility that someone is going to progress from hurting animals to hurting people,” he said. “There’s likely a community of people who are very on edge right now, given this. (But) research tells us that animal cruelty rarely progresses towards… violence towards people… or on their way to more violent acts.”

But he added that the more signs of sadism — getting gratification from hurting another living thing — the more cause for concern.

Still, the strange dismembering of wildlife and livestock south of Brandon is a mystery to hunters and trappers.

“It makes no sense at all to me,” said Grant Armstrong, a long-time trapper in southwestern Manitoba.

There’s no bounty to collect for submitting the ears of a predator or any other animal, Armstrong said.

“Sometimes people shoot those animals in the yard just to eliminate them, to offset problems for their domestic animals or if they have children.”

However, dismembering fur-bearing animals like coyotes would make them virtually unmarketable. “Without their ears, well, trappers have to leave them on as part of making them a salable item,” he said.

Armstrong doesn’t have a theory for the goat and miniature horse, but he suspects the coyotes and raccoon may have wandered onto someone’s property and been shot. RCMP have not said how the animals were killed.

The wildlife may have gone too close to human habitat out of hunger. It’s been a tough year for wildlife in southwestern Manitoba because of the deep snow, Armstrong said.

“The raccoons and coyotes at this time of year are very thin. They usually maintain a good layer of fat through the winter but the ones we’re seeing now definitely do not have that,” he said. “They’re very thin, in very poor shape. I believe they wandered into a farm yard because they were very hungry.”

Dale McBurney, a member of the local chapter of Manitoba Wildlife Federation, said no scavenging animal would have targeted the ears on a carcass. “Ravens will start on the soft tissue, like the eyes,” he said.

McBurney said the incidents recall a case more than two decades ago when someone was going around cutting off the tails of horses in southwestern Manitoba. It turned out to be someone with mental-health issues, he said.

Leah Laplante, vice-president of the Manitoba Métis Federation Southwest Region in Brandon, said she thinks it could be “some young person doing something different and trying to get attention.”

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca