Who done it in Michigan

There has been reports of large cats in Michigan for some time now. The obvious guess is that we are seeing a rebouding cougar population. YES!
(clicky to enlarge)
But here is a recent story about a attack on a horse that people are not sure if it was done by a cougar or not. More likely is was.If it wasn't a cougar, what was it?

900-pound horse mauling a mystery

Freep.com--It's a wildlife whodunit.

Is there a wild cougar roaming rural Jackson County, attacking livestock and spooking residents? Or is it just imaginations running wild?

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources insists it was not a cougar that recently mauled a 900-pound horse in Rives Township near Jackson.

But the veterinarian who saved the horse's life, the owner of the stables where he was boarded and the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy say they're certain the predator was a cougar, also known as a North American mountain lion.

The attack has added fuel to a long-running debate between the state, which says the last known wild cougar was seen in the state in 1906, and naturalists who say that cougars appear to have established a small but wide-ranging population in Michigan again.

As proof, they point to hundreds of sightings from almost every county and both peninsulas in recent years. Now they're tracking reports on Web sites complete with videos of large cats that certainly look like cougars. So convinced is the National Park Service that they posted warning signs at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore after a volunteer said she was stalked by a big cat.

In Jackson County, the mauled horse survived, but the Sept. 16 incident follows by three years the killing of another horse in a nearby township.

DNR spokeswoman Mary Detloff said DNR biologists and cougar experts analyzed photos of the injured horse. "We do not believe this was a cougar attack," she said. "We don't know what it is from."

The Jackson County veterinarian who treated the animal disagrees.

"Those are large claw wounds and obviously feline in nature and done by a very large cat -- certainly not a house cat and much larger than a bobcat," said Dr. Robert Sray. "I am certain, based on 40 years of treating animals, that this was done by a cougar."

Pat Rusz, director of wildlife programs for the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, contends the DNR has long been stonewalling on the existence of cougars in Michigan.

"There is no doubt this was done by a cougar who jumped on the animal's back and sliced it open on the side," Rusz said. "We have a small but viable breeding population of cougars in Michigan."

Its probably a cougar, but this gives me a chance to post the Gable film about the Michigan Dogman. Now I would never post anything that I thought was a hoax, unless I thought it was a hoax and was calling it out. But I think this is a hoax. To the best of my knowledge nothing has come out recently saying that this video is a fake, but doing research on it a while back on the origins of the video, it did seem to appear from a production company.

That being said, take it for some entertainment value. I like it because it has a Blair Witch Project feel to it. The deal behind the video is that a 8mm film was found at a garage sale back in 2007. On the film it starts off by showing what appears to be a home video. You will see someone chopping wood, and doing other things. Then it will cut to a scene of driving through the woods, until they spot something from the distance. Then you can watch it and see what happens. Like I said I think its fake, but its a cool video.

The Gable Film of the Michigan Dogman


Here are a couple stills.