Coyotes found killed, skinned in Santa Teresa
EL PASO, Texas (KFOX) — A man found piles of what he first thought were dead dogs, out in the desert in Santa Teresa.
It turns out, the animals are actually coyotes, according to the Sunland Park Police Department.
Police said they were hunted, killed and skinned.
"I tried to get in contact with so many people, but no one wanted to come out here,” said Jose Talamas.
Way out in the Santa Teresa desert on Friday, Talamas has no idea his morning stroll would turn gruesome.
"There's multiple paths along that main desert road, so I got off on one of them,” Talamas said. “And when I got off, I smelled something foul."
Something foul, that immediately signed Talamas, that something wasn't right.
"I thought it was maybe a rabbit or something, but never expected to find this,” he said.
“I thought they were goats at first, but then I realized that their paws still had a little bit of fur on them."
The Sunland Park Police Department has since identified what Talamas found as skinned coyotes.
"And I searched a pretty big area, just to see what I could find, and I ended up finding about four,” Talamas said.
Talamas said he saw four different piles, of at least 40 dead coyotes.
"Just really shocked, because they're all a single breed, and they all just got dumped here,” Talamas said.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham did pass Senate Bill 76 in 2019, banning coyote killing contests.
However, Sunland Park Police Department officials said coyote killings aren't uncommon in this area. The department told KFOX14, hunters will kill them, and skin them for their fur.
Talamas doesn’t want law enforcement to move on, without a thorough investigation.
"Definitely just investigate it, as much as we can gather,” Talamas said. “Because some of them still had fur on. And they weren't that badly decomposed.”
“It was clear that they had been there for a little while, but not long enough to where this happened long ago,” he said.
Sunland Park officials said the area where it happened is within Doña Ana County Sheriff's Department jurisdiction. But Sunland Park police did end up going out to the area to check it out.
KFOX14 has not heard back from DASO as of Friday night, regarding whether it is doing an investigation.
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