About the cow mutilations out west, have they done any DNA testing?

Question

The cattle mutilations out west--there was an official report saying that "most"of these mutilations were caused by natural predators--but "most" isn't "all" regarding these 10,000 reported mutilations over 40 years. These ranchers are smart, this is their livelihood--they would recognize a known natural predator attack (by wolves or mountain lions, etc.) if they saw it.

Some of these animals--and I'm learning it's not just cattle and horses out in the US west but sheep and goats, dogs and cats in many places of the world--have puncture marks on their bodies (which makes me think of bats regarding the smaller animals, although this doesn't quite make sense either)....

....but why can't they do DNA testing of these dead animals to FIND OUT what kind of predator attacked them?

Answer 1

In the cases I covered for my research project I found that they either did testing and came up with a known predator (which is probable since predators are also scavenngers) and then they would disreguard any other samples. When there was not a known predators DNA (though it realy is not DNA testing, more like chromosamal testing), they could only say unknown. It is very easy to contaminate the testing, so that can account for the unreliability.

What can look like punture wounds can be, not always, be from the natural decomposing process in which the skin is torn from the bloating of the inner flesh then the swelling goes down or is ignored.