10 Zoo Animals Killed : ‘Panther’ Stalked in Newhall

An elusive black animal has prompted extensive searches of hilly terrain near Newhall’s William S. Hart Park--even though officials believe it’s only a dog.

When the animal was first sighted by two Castaic residents Dec. 26, one them said it was a black panther that leaped out of a tree and scrambled up a nearby hill. The park was evacuated and eight sheriff’s deputies and two park patrol officers conducted an unsuccessful, hourlong search of the area, assisted by a sheriff’s helicopter circling over the park.

Three days later, 10 animals--two geese, three ducks and five pygmy goats--were killed at a children’s zoo that the park maintains in an open-air enclosure.

Judy Orosco, district supervisor for the county-run Castaic Animal Care and Control Center, said the animal was last seen about 5 p.m. Friday. The previous day, animal-control workers and state Department of Fish and Game officers spent hours combing the hills and canyons around the park on foot and horseback looking for the predator. Searchers found only dog and coyote tracks, she said.

“We found no wild-cat tracks--not even a bobcat’s,” she said. Traps set by animal-control workers also came up empty, she said.

Orosco said she believes a dog “looking for sport” killed the animals at the small zoo. She said that wild cats typically kill other animals only for food and that the dead animals had not been eaten.

Park worker Kenny Newman said that he found the dead and dying park animals on Dec. 29 about 6 p.m. and that he must have just missed the animals’ killer.

Orosco said the animal seen by residents probably was a dog. The animal seen jumping from a tree could have been a black dog leaping from an embankment behind the tree, she said.

She said the woman who first saw the animal described it as being about waist-high. “A panther would only have been about as high as her knees,” Orosco said. “A big dog could come up to her waist.”

Newman said other park animals have been killed by dogs. Two years ago, he said, park workers determined that a Doberman pinscher and German shepherd were teaming up to prey on the animals. He said one of the dogs was captured in a trap.