Chupacabras of North America (and Beyond?)

n 1995, strange animal deaths on the island country of Puerto Rico were blamed on a monster that many claimed to have encountered; this beast was called the Chupacabras, Spanish for "goat sucker," because of it's vampiric killing techniques. After these incidents had been reported on television worldwide, animal deaths in other countries started to be blamed both by witnesses and by news agencies on the "chupacabra" as well, despite obvious differences in both the remains left and the creatures blamed... the word 'chupacabra' had simply become a buzzword meaning 'unknown killer of small livestock,' and using it in a headline totally sold news stories. In these new 'reports,' the name Chupacabras became 'Chupacabra' -- losing the 's' on the end -- because of an English assumption that it represented a plural, though the original Spanish is the correct spelling for both a single or group of Chupacabras.

        The majority of these new reports came from Mexico and the Southern portion of the United States -- mostly Texas -- and the creatures being sighted in these areas are usually distinctly dog-like in appearance. Even though early reports described these new "Chupacabra" as weird and vampiric relations to the Puerto Rico monster, later reports described animals that seem to be scavengers and opportunistic predators, willing to get an easy meal from a farm. Many dead bodies, photos, and films now exist of these "American 'Chupacabra'," so the arguements at this point are no longer about whether or not the creatures are supernatural (despite what news agencies continue to report)... the real arguments are about whether these specimens and reports represent a new, unknown animal species or if the evidence merely shows a problem with mange.