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Kent Kammermeyer: Could it be a lion?
A woman who found her horse dead in the pasture of her Harmony Church Road home believes the culprit may have been the mountain lion Hall County residents reportedly have seen over the last month.
Wildlife officials aren’t so sure.
JoAnn Hitman, said the large animal tracks on her property indicate a large cat may have attacked her 27-year-old thoroughbred mix named “Dan.”
Hitman said she discovered the dead horse at 8 a.m. Thursday when she went to feed the four horses she keeps on her property near the Hall County line.
When Hitman found the horse, it appeared an animal fed on the horse’s shoulder, she said.
Hitman said her veterinarian, whom she would not name, took photographs and told her it appeared that a large cat attacked the horse. “Dan” was a foster horse Hitman acquired from the Georgia Equine Rescue League, she said.
Hitman’s veterinarian sent photographs of the dead horse and a set of paw prints found in a corral near the pasture where Hitman found the horse.
After viewing the photographs, officials with the Department of Natural Resources said the tracks appear to belong to a large dog.
“Those are classic dog prints,” said Riddleberger. “... The track picture they sent us was a dog track. Whether it (the print) has anything to do with a horse being dead, I don’t know.”
The prints are those of a four-toed animal with two claws. Riddleberger said cats walk with their claws retracted.
“They don’t show claw marks while they’re walking,” Riddleberger said.
He said the tracks could not belong to a bear, either, because bears have five toes.
Riddleberger also said wildlife officials did not believe the animal that fed on the horse killed it. The photographs did not show any damage to the animal’s neck, any sign of a struggle or blood, leading wildlife officials to believe that an animal fed on the horse after it died, Riddleberger said.
“There’s not anything there to indicate that it was killed by a lion that we could see (from the photographs),” Riddleberger said.
Wildlife officials planned to visit Hitman’s home later Thursday to get a better look at the prints and the site where the horse died, but wildlife officials could not be reached by The Times after that visit.