◆ PARALLAX

Ranch family, Catron County. We have lost stock to whatever this is three times now and I am posting because the brand inspector writes "dog" every time and there were no dogs. Clean cuts, almost surgical, certain parts taken and others not, and -- this is the part -- no blood where there should be a lake of it, and no tracks coming or going in ground that holds a track like wet cement. I am not a UFO man. I run cattle. I am a man missing cattle and tired of being told it was coyotes by people who have never skinned one.

Cody I am two counties over and we have had the same, including the no-blood and the no-tracks, and I will tell you what I have learned the hard way: document it like a crime scene before you touch anything, because the second you move the carcass you lose the only evidence that travels. Photos with something for scale, the ground all around at a low angle for tracks or the lack of them, and the time of day you found it. The "dog" verdict sticks because nobody photographs it properly while it is fresh. We are not crazy and we are not alone, but we are bad at evidence, and it costs us every time.