KAILUA-KONA — Another cow is dead in Naalehu, but the cause of its demise is a point of some contention.
Hawaii County Police and Hawaii Department of Agriculture officials believe based on a medical examination that parasites, not bullets, were the likely cause of death, although the rancher who owned the dead cow disputes that finding.
Ka‘u rancher Armando Rodriguez instead is standing by his belief that the animal was killed by a gunman or gunmen that several ranchers say have roamed ranches throughout the district for years taking aim at their livestock simply for the thrill of it.
Rodriguez reported to Hawaii County police on Nov. 26 that he’d found another dead cow in his family’s pasture, the second in as many weeks.
Rodriguez believes the first cow, an 800-pound heifer, was shot by an unknown person or persons for no apparent reason. Cattle rustlers in the area have been known to kill ranch animals, but they typically make off with some or all of the meat.
A subsequent West Hawaii Today inquiry set off a chain of reports from several Ka‘u ranchers who said they’d each dealt with multiple cattle killings over the last three years — all dead by gunshots and all for no apparent reason, as the meat had been left to bloat and rot on the animals.
Rodriguez believes his second cow, a 10-month-old calf found dead in the same pasture as the first, was also killed by way of a shooting. But an HPD investigation into the incident turned up different results.
Hawaii Police Department Maj. Robert Wagner said police examined both animals and were unable to determine a precise cause of death for either one.
Ka‘u police then requested that Dr. Kim Kozuma, veterinary medical officer for the District of Hawaii with HDOA, accompany them to Rodriguez’s farm on Dec. 1 to assist in the investigation.
Jason Moniz — veterinary program manager for the Animal Disease Control Branch, Division of Animal Industry, HDOA — said Kozuma wrote in her report that by the time she arrived at the farm, the first cow was too decomposed to decipher a cause of death.
She preformed a necropsy on the second cow, however, and came to the conclusion that a gunshot hadn’t played a role in its death after finding several thin, white, threadlike worms in the animal’s intestinal tract.
“Basically, the major finding was numerous intestinal parasites and that was probably the cause of death,” Moniz said. “It’s not uncommon to lose animals from this age group to parasites.”
Parasites are ubiquitous, particularly after the dry season transitions to the rainy season, he continued. Cattle tend to develop partial immunity to parasites over time, but they remain particularly vulnerable in their first two years of life.
The first cow Rodriguez reported dead was also young enough to have potentially been fatally impacted by parasites. However, both Moniz and Wagner acknowledged they couldn’t say whether parasites were the primary cause, as decomposition was too advanced by the time examinations were conducted.
Concerning the first incident, Rodriguez was adamant Tuesday that the animal had sustained an evident gunshot.
As to the second animal, Rodriguez said he disagreed with Kozuma’s assessment. He noted a wound on the animal near where one of its front legs connected to the rest of its body, suggesting it looked like it came from an inaccurately fired bullet. He explained there wasn’t much else in the pasture that could have caused a wound like that.
“It was more like a graze,” he said. “It had like a skid on the back of it too, like a streak, where the bullet just grazed it.”
He added that when cows get sick enough to die from parasites, they thin out significantly and weaken first, which didn’t happen.
Wagner described the second cow differently than Rodriguez, saying it was “thin but not emaciated.”
Moniz said Kozuma noticed the wound Rodriguez referenced but noted that there was no penetrating wound and no trauma within the body cavity, meaning the wound wouldn’t have contributed to the animal’s death regardless of what caused it.
“The main message we want to send is just to call us so we can look into it and we can determine if the cow has been shot, because there are forms of cattle rustling going on in that district,” Wagner explained. “And yes, we may not solve them all, but you have to at least give us a chance to try and look into it and figure it out.”
Rodriguez said he and a few other ranchers, as well as representatives from HPD, have a meeting scheduled with Mayor Harry Kim at the end of December to discuss the ongoing issues with cattle safety in Ka‘u.
