Wild Horse Mutilations near Mesita, Colorado - January 2008On the afternoon of Friday, 16 January 2008, I was driving through the very sparsely-populated southeastern edge of the San Luis Valley in Colorado near the New Mexico border, when I passed a large animal, dead in the ditch. Although I was in a hurry to get to my destination, I turned around on the deserted highway and went back to take a look. A wild horse lay frozen in the snow. From my initial perspective I couldn't see anything unusual about the body. I walked up to it and immediately noted that, while most of the carcass was in seemingly pristine condition, fairly fresh, classic mutilation wounds were indeed evident. Mount Blanca, site of the first well-documented horse mutilation case in 1967, dominated the landscape due north.I documented the mutilated horse as best I could, but had no materials with which to do any kind of sampling. Without a camera except for my phone, and with 12-degree weather made nearly unbearable by raging northerly winds, I reluctantly left the carcass. I made my way on to Taos, where I stayed throughout the weekend. I could only hope that the body would still be there when I returned to Denver the next Monday morning, when, with a disposable camera and plastic bags in hand, I would be prepared to take more photographs, measurements, and a sample of the white liquid which appeared to be an oil-based paint that was dripping down the sides of the body.Arriving near the site of the original mutilation mid-morning on Monday the 19th, a half dozen or so large, dark birds were picking at what I assumed were the remains of the horse I'd found Friday afternoon. Disappointed by the fact that scavengers had not avoided the carcass, I took some photos of the remains, including a serrated incision below its rectum and the empty eye socket. The ear on the left side of the face also appeared to have been artificially excised. Notably, the flesh on the head and the rear of this animal was intact, while the rest of the carcass was scavenged to the bone, the snow around it messy and dark. I took a few photos and continued north, sorry that I was unable to complete a more thorough investigation.Not a mile passed before I saw the horse that I'd found Friday afternoon - so the one I just passed was a SECOND case of wild horse mutilation. The original horse was still apparently in the identical state I had found it Friday afternoon - not a trace of scavenging. Although my schedule was tight, I was able to more thoroughly document the wounds: precise rectal coring and accompanying ventral incision (I should have known that the first horse I saw Monday was not the one I'd found Friday, since it didn't have the classic coring wound), a straight incision on the belly directly between the mare's teats, the missing eyeball on the upward (left) side of the horse's head, and a clean oval excision in the shoulder hide and smaller ovel through the muscle at an angle that would lead to the heart area. This horse also had what appeared to be artificial scarring on its face, just below the eye socket. What might have produced such marks is unknown, but its reasonable to think that if this horse had been monitored by the mutilating agency, the scarring may have had something to do with possible prior non-lethal activity and/or tracking.Further investigation revealed that the original horse found Friday, which I'll call MWH-1 for Mesita Wild Horse One, was killed in a collision with a tractor-trailer the Monday night previous, 14 January 2008. From the accident report obtained by the Highway Patrol, the evidence I documented on-scene confirmed that the horse was not transported elsewhere for the mutilation. MWH-1 had landed in the road, slid down into the shallow ditch, and was apparently mutilated on the spot sometime after being killed by the truck.The second horse - the one found nearly completely scavenged Monday morning, the 19th, which I'll call MWH-2, was actually killed in a collision with a Jeep on Friday night, just hours after I passed by the area. MWH-2 was more badly mangled in the accident, as I noted when comparing the photos of the two horses. Its face was also notably smaller than MWH-1, thus MWH-2 was presumably a younger horse. Due to its extreme scavenged and wounded state, I was unable to determine the sex of MWH-2.I found it curious that the two horses were both found mutilated after being roadkilled, within days and a mile of each other. Notably, MWH-1 was a week post-mortem and not scavenged at all, while less than a mile downwind, MWH-2 was picked to near-nothing just two and a half days after its unfortunate death. I photographed a band of wild horses in the vicinity of these two carcasses, and have considered the possibility that MWH-1 was an older relative of MWH-2 - perhaps even its parent.The remains of the material I gathered on my fleece glove Monday (in liquid state, despite near-zero to sub-zero temperatures throughout the weekend) were scientifically identified as magnesium silicate crystals, and with "80% certainty" as pure asbestos. Although the liquid appeared to be paint (which often contains magnesium silicate in the form of talc), no binder ingredients were identified in the dry sample sent to the lab. The photographs, however, clearly show an opaque, wet, white substance dripping near the mutilatated areas on both horses - apparently applied in a rather haphazard fashion as if to mark the wounds.