Port Alberni RCMP and animal authorities are on the lookout for a pack of wild dogs that slaughtered a herd of goats in Beaver Creek on the weekend.
The incident happened on Friday on Alberni Valley resident Robert Tolfo's property near McLean Mill.
Tolfo let his six goats out of their pen to graze that morning. When he returned at 7 p.m. the goats weren't waiting for him at the pen like they normally do. He went to a secondary barn where the goats mingle and found one of them being mauled by a black Rottweiler. He caught a fleeting glimpse of two other brown dogs of undetermined breeds running away.
“The Rottweiler was on top of the goat and had it jaws clamped around its throat. There was no sign of the other goats,” Tolfo said.
Unarmed, Tolfo could only stand and watch. He tried to scare the dog only to be growled at before it ran away.
Tolfo called his wife using his cellphone and told her to bring his rifle. He then called police. When his wife arrived, he shot the goat at the barn to put it out of its suffering, he said.
Police arrived 15 minutes later and they notified conservation authorities, Tolfo said. The group scoured the property but found no sign of the dogs. They did however find four dead goats. And Tolfo found the sixth goat carcass the next morning. “They all had their throats ripped out. There were no other markings on them and they weren't eaten. The dogs weren't hungry — they were just out to kill,” Tolfo said.
Tolfo managed to snap a picture of one of the dogs – a black Rottweiler with a chain around its neck, likely denoting an owner, he said. And the other two dogs are described as being mixed breeds that were brown in colour.
Tolfo feeds his goats and tends to his other animals every day and said he had never seen the dogs before. “I talked to my neighbours and they don't recall seeing them either,” he said. “The dogs are either a wandering pack, or they're a pack that's extending its territory.”
Tolfo hopes the pack will be found before they do any other damage.“There's other people around here who have livestock. These things have killed before and they'll kill again,” he said.
Anyone with any information about this incident is asked to call RCMP at 250-723-2424 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS [8477].
reporter@albernivalleynews.com
Twitter.com/AlberniNews