A “chupacabra”--which is probably a raccoon--found in Texas by a couple was later euthanized, according to reports on Monday.
The couple, Jackie Stock and Arlen Parma from Ratcliffe, said they trapped the alleged mythical beast while it was eating corn and put it in a cage. They named the animal “Chupie” and gave the hairless animal water and cat food.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said that it was illegal to keep a live, wild animal in a cage, telling them they should put it down.
“It went to sleep very peacefully,” Stock told TMZ it was euthanized. “I had gotten attached. I was calling him Chupie. He will be missed.”
Brent Ortego, who works with the state’s Parks and Wildlife Department, said that the animal was probably a raccoon with a case of mange, which causes animals to lose their fur.
Game warden Rex Mays also said the animal is likely a raccoon. “To me, it looked like a raccoon with severe mange,” Mays told the Victoria Advocate. “It looks like a raccoon to me.”
“A [raccoon] don’t make that noise, or a possum. What makes that noise? I guess a chupacabra does, I don’t know,” Parma said, according to the New York Daily News.
But Ben Radford, a paranormal investigator, told LiveScience.com that it’s unlikely the animal is the beast.
“The mouth and jaw structures of raccoons, dogs and coyotes prevent them from creating a seal around their victims, and, therefore, physically prevents them from sucking the blood out of goats or anything else,” he wrote on the website. “This Ratcliffe chupacabra was not seen nor videotaped sucking blood from anything.”
