UPDATE: Investigators believe large cat did not kill Monroe County animals

UPDATE

Monroe County Sheriff’s deputies and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources were called to the Bill Butler Spur area Sunday morning after several animals were found dead.

They found three horses, a pit bull and a husky that appeared to have been killed by a large animal, according to the sheriff’s office Facebook page.

Members of the state fish and wildlife diagnostics team examined the animals and said the attack does not appear to have been done by a large cat as initially released by the sheriff’s office.

“We can say it’s not a cat, and there is no evidence of a coyote,” said Bill Lynch, a wildlife biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

“It’s inconclusive,” he said of the deaths. “You have to do a necropsy.  It wasn’t a cat. It wasn’t even anything like that. There wasn’t enough damage. There is one track that is questionable.”

It will be up to the animal owners to decide if they want to pay for necropsies to determine official causes of death for the animals, Lynch said.

“It was not conducive to an animal attack,” he said. “There was not enough disruption to the area.”

Lynch does not know what could have caused the deaths.

—-

Monroe County Sheriff’s deputies and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources were called to the Bill Butler Spur area Sunday morning after several animals were found dead.

They found three horses, a pit bull and a husky that appears to have been killed by a large cat or other large animal, according to the sheriff’s office Facebook page.

Members of the state fish and wildlife diagnostics team from Frankfort will examine these animals. 

In the meantime, the sheriff’s office is asking residents there to closely monitor small children and household pets when they are outside, according to the Facebook post.