Having lived in Puerto Rico until my teens, I can tell you that we were a supersticious bunch. But after the “Vampiro de Moca” (the “Chupacabras predecessor), people became very fidgety.

During The Vampiros time I recall the entire professional baseball stadium (Isidoro Garcia Stadium) going silent during a pro game as this balls of fire silently flew over chasing one another heading in the direction of Dominican Republic. A few weeks after that the Vampiro was going on a feeding frenzy. Months later it ceased to be, almost all of a sudden.

This generation now has the Chupacabra. Unfortunately its not just goats, and its not just one or two animals. In Puerto Rico this means that a farmer will not feed his family, even though San Juan seems to be exactly like the USA, the rest of the island is still in a 1930’s frame of mind. For crying out loud, when I moved to the hills in 1975, we were the only family there that actually had electricity, running water and indoor plumbing. To us at that time losing even one hen for any reason would put us in jeopardy. It is easy for all the armchair cryptozoologists and skeptics to pass judgements. But keep in mind, when an animal dies or is killed, the first thing that gets to it are insects. Then you have the other scavengers.

Unfortunately, when the Chupacabra feeds, no other animals get close to the site, and there are never insects feeding on the carcass, I bet no one has told you that before, now try to explain that one away. The only way they find the carcasses are dessicated, period. Please explain to me which insect or scavenger does that. Or how can a “demented” scientist exanguinate and dessicate a cow in less than a week.

The thing to remember is that this things occur in rural places where the animals that are dying are the things that keep the farmers alive. So once again the question would be, why do I want to kill the hand that feeds me???

The chupacabras is one of the weirdest cryptids if it is skulking around, and it does not match anything out of the fossil record to date that I know of or have come across.

I think you are dead on in talking about the name Chupacabras has taken on a folk-loric life as it is being used to explain every strange phenomenon that people encounter.

Thanks for your input and keep it coming!!!

In the other hand, a place too far removed creates its own set of problems. People there are very acquainted with their surroundings and the local flora and fauna, but can easily attribute weird characteristics to unknown animals. Some facts could be exaggerated or distorted.

I’m going to give you an example. In Costa Rica there was a case of a farmer that claimed he spotted the chupacabras. The local police was called to investigate, and when the officers arrived they saw what they though was the thing. They shot it… and it turned out to be a Chow Chow dog that a city guy brought there. The locals apparently have never seen a Chow Chow…

In addition, when some of the animals supposedly killed by the chupacabras are examined more closely, it turns out they have not been completely drained after all. Dogs or other known animals have attacked them.

Then again, you have the weird cases that can’t be dismissed so easily. For example, in Brazil a guy saw what he immediately called a chupacabras, sucking the blood of one of his cows. However, the creature he described was more like a giant vampire bat, and there is an extinct giant bat in South America: the desmodus draculae. The Spanish Cryptozoology Society has an article about it, and has ventured that some of these reports could actually be sightings of the supposedly extinct bat.