Horse killed by unknown 'large animal' in Thumb

A 1,200 pound adult horse is dead, and the "large" animal that bit and killed it hasn't been identified, causing the Sanilac County Sheriff's Office to issue a warning Monday on Facebook.

The horse was fatally wounded at about noon Sunday at its pasture in a rural area about 80 miles northeast of metro Detroit.

"The owners were in their house, heard commotion, went outside and the horse was bleeding badly from the rear hoof," said Sanilac County animal control officer Jim Matson. "No other animal was seen."

He said mid-day is "kind of an unusual time" for predators to strike, and they're not sure what caused the injury. The sheriff's office posted a message about the incident to its Facebook page on Monday, sparking varied speculation from commenters.

"Please be vigilant and watch your animals and children," the agency said in the post.



But Matson said they haven't yet ruled out whether the horse may have injured itself, although a walk in the pasture didn't reveal any dangerous obstacles.

The horse was bitten on a lower part of a rear leg, apparently causing it to bleed out, sheriff's office Sgt. Darrin Siemen said. He said it couldn't have been a small animal that did the biting, but it could have been a coyote. The incident was on private property near the Galbraith Line and Black River Roads, about 5 miles west of Lake Huron and south of Croswell.

Comments on the agency's Facebook post included speculation that the attacker could be a cougar, a Sasquatch or even a "manbearpig." So far, the animal responsible remains unidentified, and the agencies have referred the case to a biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Matson said coyotes are known to be in the area. But rumors of cougars appear unlikely to be true.

"I've been doing this for 25 years, and there never was known of a cougar in the wild up here, to my knowledge," he said.

Contact Robert Allen at rallen@freepress.com or @rallenMI.