Woodbury County authorities are investigating the mysterious death of 17 head of cattle this weekend. Lieutenant Charles Hertz of the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office, says the cattle were discovered by a creek near Lawton around 1:30 Saturday afternoon.
He says the cattle owner was checking on the animals and discovered 17 cattle in the creek dead, while there were 13 others nearby that were just fine. Hertz says the were no marks on the animals or anything else to indicate why they died. “We had checked the creek to determine if there were any other deaths associated with these cattle and we could not determine anything. There were no fish that were killed or any other livestock or animals in the area that had been killed,” Hertz says. “The state vet did a field autopsy at the scene, and there was nothing readily apparent.”
He says the county emergency manager took water samples. “And found everything to be in normal parameters. These samples are going to be forwarded to Storm Lake to have further tests done on them. The state vet also took samples from these animals and there will be further tests conducted,” according to Hertz. Hertz says there are not indications of criminal activity as they continue to investigate looking for the cause of the death of the animals.
(Reporting by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)