Chester Moore Files #3

I once retrieved the carcass of an alleged chupacabra. What I found points toward a fascinating intersection of wildlife disease, canid biology and one of America’s strangest modern legends.

By Chester Moore

I have what could legitimately be called a chupacabra skull sitting in my collection.

That doesn’t mean I believe it came from an unknown, bloodsucking predator. In fact, I believe the animal was most likely a coyote or medium-to-large domestic dog suffering from a severe condition that transformed its appearance. But the story of how I came into possession of it—and what wildlife science tells us about animals like it—offers an interesting look at how real wildlife can become the foundation for extraordinary legends.

My friend David Clever first encountered the animal after a massive flash flood. The carcass was bloated and floating in a pool when he initially saw it. When he returned later, decomposition had progressed, but the animal was still largely intact. He noticed something immediately unusual about it: there was essentially no hair, the skin was grayish and wrinkled, and the proportions of the front and rear portions of the animal appeared strange.

David later contacted me while I was doing other wildlife research in the Texas Hill Country and asked whether I wanted to retrieve what remained.

Of course I did.

What I eventually recovered was exactly the kind of animal that, if photographed beside a rural Texas road or captured on a trail camera, would almost certainly have been called a chupacabra. I kept the skull, and remnants of the unusual skin remained with the specimen. My assessment is that it was most likely a coyote or a domestic dog, although without genetic testing I can’t definitively identify it.

The experience made me look much more closely at the wildlife behind the chupacabra phenomenon.

Hear the Full Chupacabra Investigation

I recently explored the subject in depth on my Dark Outdoors podcast in an episode called “The Horror and Science of Chupacabra.” The program looks at everything from the original Puerto Rican legend to Texas “blue dogs,” coyotes, canid genetics and my own encounters with animals that could easily have been labeled chupacabras.

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Looking at the subject from a wildlife perspective reveals something fascinating. We don’t need an undiscovered species to explain many of the creatures people are encountering. Nature already has the ability to turn familiar wildlife into something that looks almost unrecognizable.

When a Coyote Stops Looking Like a Coyote

The number one animal I see associated with modern Texas chupacabra reports is the coyote.

Most people know exactly what a healthy coyote looks like. Give that same animal a severe case of mange, however, and identification becomes much more difficult. Hair loss changes the apparent proportions of the animal. Legs suddenly look unusually long, ears seem oversized, the tail loses its familiar bushy appearance and ribs may become visible as the animal’s physical condition deteriorates.

Skin can become thickened, wrinkled and grayish or bluish. A badly affected animal may also move differently because it is sick and weakened. Those characteristics can combine to produce an animal that bears surprisingly little resemblance to the healthy coyote pictured in a field guide. The transcript of my investigation describes this same combination of hair loss, gaunt appearance, exposed ribs and altered skin in animals people have identified as chupacabras.

Foxes can become even more dramatic-looking because their ears are already large in proportion to their bodies. Remove the coat from a fox and those ears suddenly dominate its appearance. At night, add eyeshine from headlights or a flashlight and it’s easy to understand how someone seeing the animal for only a few seconds could believe he encountered something truly unusual.

Even raccoons can become virtually unrecognizable when mange removes their characteristic coat and facial mask. In one case I remember seeing presented as a mysterious animal, the supposedly inexplicable creature was a severely affected raccoon.

These animals aren’t imaginary. The mistake comes in explaining what they are.

My Own Nighttime “Chupacabra” Encounter

I’ve experienced firsthand how dramatically disease can alter our perception of wildlife.

I was working near a wooded area where I had been conducting research related to red wolves. One evening I spotted something moving low through the brush. I couldn’t immediately identify it and initially considered a coyote or perhaps a hog.

I made a canid vocalization and something answered.

Soon I could see a skinny animal with unusually prominent ears in the moonlight. It moved away when illuminated but circled back and growled several times. Then it made an aggressive run toward me, getting within roughly 10 to 15 yards before retreating.

Once I got a good look, I realized it was a domestic dog suffering from an extreme case of mange. I estimated that about three-quarters of its hair was missing.

I knew what I was seeing because of my experience with wildlife. But put someone unfamiliar with mange in that same situation—alone at night, hearing growls and suddenly seeing a nearly hairless canine charging out of the darkness—and the encounter takes on an entirely different character.

That is one of the reasons I don’t ridicule people who report seeing strange creatures.

They may have seen exactly what they say they saw. The question is what biological explanation lies behind it.

The Science of the “Blue Dog”

The so-called Texas “blue dog” is especially interesting because the strange coloration associated with some alleged chupacabras can have a biological explanation.

Research discussed in my podcast examined tissue samples from animals associated with the chupacabra phenomenon. The animals included familiar species such as raccoons and domestic dogs, and severe mange was a common denominator. Researchers described animals with very little hair and thickened, dry and wrinkled skin. The discussion also connected secondary bacterial infection from extensive scratching with the bluish appearance reported in some animals.

Put all those characteristics together and you get something that can look almost otherworldly: little or no hair, gray-blue skin, an emaciated body, prominent ears, unusual-looking legs and perhaps abnormal behavior from an animal weakened by disease and desperate for food.

There is another important factor. Sick predators still have to eat.

A severely compromised coyote, fox or other predator may seek easier sources of food, potentially bringing it closer to homes, livestock and poultry. That increased proximity to people also increases the likelihood that someone will photograph or encounter the animal.

Suddenly, the “monster” is showing up in the backyard.

Coyotes, Wolves and Chupacabra Genetics

Another fascinating component of the Texas chupacabra story involves canid genetics.

Coyotes don’t exist in complete genetic isolation from other North American canids. The history of wolves and coyotes includes hybridization, and the red wolf story in particular has become deeply intertwined with questions involving coyote ancestry and introgression.

That has led some people to suggest that unusual coyote-wolf hybrids explain the strange appearance of Texas chupacabras.

I don’t think that’s what is happening.

Hybridization could certainly produce individual canids with unusual size, coloration or other physical characteristics. But it doesn’t explain the severe hair loss, damaged skin and emaciated appearance characteristic of many supposed chupacabras. My investigation concluded that mange is a far more convincing explanation for those features.

The genetics question is fascinating on its own. It just shouldn’t be used to explain something that wildlife disease already explains quite well.

How the Chupacabra Changed

There is also a cultural component that makes this wildlife mystery unusual.

The chupacabra that emerged from Puerto Rico in the 1990s wasn’t necessarily the same creature people began calling a chupacabra in Texas. The Puerto Rican legend centered on mysterious livestock attacks and animals allegedly drained of blood. Some descriptions were almost alien in character. As the story spread through Mexico and eventually into the United States, the image of the creature evolved.

In Texas, the chupacabra increasingly became canine.

Trail-camera photographs, roadkills and sightings of strange hairless animals became attached to the name. Eventually, a term originally meaning “goat sucker” could describe almost any weird-looking hairless mammal someone encountered.

That’s an important distinction because explaining the Texas animals doesn’t necessarily explain every story that originated in Puerto Rico.

Earlier Puerto Rican accounts even included the so-called Vampire of Moca during the 1970s, involving mysterious livestock deaths and reports very different from later Texas hairless-canid sightings.

Folklore evolves, and sometimes real wildlife gets absorbed into it.

There Is a Real Animal Behind Many Monsters

The lesson I take from the chupacabra isn’t that people are foolish for believing they saw something unusual. It’s almost the opposite.

Wildlife can be incredibly difficult to identify under poor conditions. Disease, injury, genetic variation, decomposition and simple viewing angle can make a familiar species look completely foreign. Add darkness, a brief glimpse and a little adrenaline, and identification becomes even harder.

I’ve experienced that personally. I’ve had a severely mangy canine approach me aggressively in the dark, and I’ve gone into the field to retrieve the remains of an alleged chupacabra. I still have the skull from that carcass.

My suspicion remains that the skull belongs to a coyote or domestic dog. Perhaps one day I’ll have genetic testing done and get a more definitive answer.

Until then, it’s a fascinating reminder that the line separating wildlife from folklore isn’t always as clear as we imagine.

I don’t believe most Texas chupacabra reports represent an undiscovered species. The evidence points much more strongly toward coyotes, foxes, raccoons and domestic dogs transformed by severe disease. That was also the conclusion I reached in the podcast: many of these creatures are real animals, just not the monster popular culture created.

And from a wildlife perspective, I find that explanation more interesting than a monster.

A coyote doesn’t have to be mythical to become almost unrecognizable. Nature can do that all by itself.

For much more on the history, strange reports, science and my firsthand experiences, listen to “The Horror and Science of Chupacabra” on the Dark Outdoors podcast.

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Chester Moore

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