The conventional animals are untouched. Completely.

Not just less targeted — entirely ignored. Rancher Delia Montoya, who runs a mixed operation outside of Mosquero, has forty-seven conventional goats and eleven certified organic ones. As of last Tuesday, she has forty-seven conventional goats and four certified organic ones. The others she described as ‘drained, like always, you know how it is,’ which is a sentence that I wrote down verbatim because I respect her pragmatism enormously.

The fence damage is consistent with something that knows where it’s going

Every breach point so far has been on the side of the property where the organic animals were kept. Not adjacent, not nearby — specifically that side. Two farms use different fencing materials for different sections. The cheaper chain-link, bordering the conventional stock, shows no disturbance. The higher-quality fencing around the organic pen has, in one case, been described as ‘opened like a door.’ I did not invent that. That’s a direct quote from a fence.

The remaining animals are behaving differently than standard post-incident livestock

Typical predator aftermath produces generalized anxiety in surviving animals. What witnesses are describing here is more directional — the conventional goats are calm, and the surviving organic ones are what Montoya called ‘specific about it,’ clustering away from a particular corner of the pen regardless of where food is placed. Something made a strong impression on them in that corner. I have a photograph of the corner. I am not going to describe the corner.

The organic certification documents for affected farms have gone missing

This one took me a while to verify because it sounds insane, and I have a high threshold for insane. Three of the four affected farms report that paperwork — physical copies of their USDA organic certification, kept in different locations on each property — has been disturbed. Not stolen in any useful sense. Just moved, or rifled, or in one case left in the water trough. I am not saying the creature reads. I am saying the creature is curious about documentation in a way I find professionally relatable.

There are tracks, and the tracks show hesitation near the conventional pen

A wildlife biologist who asked not to be named, but who has consulted informally on several cases I’d rather not specify, looked at photographs of the track patterns and said — and I am quoting directly — ‘it approaches, it pauses, it redirects.’ Near the conventional animals, it redirects. Near the organic ones, it does not. That is not standard predator behavior. That is something closer to a preference being exercised.

The timing correlates with delivery days for organic feed

I didn’t catch this one myself. Credit to witness Ramón Esquivel, who farms about twelve miles from the second incident site and who keeps meticulous records because he was, in a previous life, an accountant. He noticed that every incident occurred within forty-eight hours of a certified organic feed delivery. The animals that were targeted had most recently eaten the organic feed. The ones that had been shifted temporarily to conventional feed during a supply delay were not touched. I have added this to a folder on my laptop. I can find this folder.

One witness reported seeing it pause and then move on from a mislabeled animal

Estefanía Ruiz runs a small herd and, due to an administrative error she’s been fighting with her certifying agent about for three months, one of her goats had lapsed certification for a two-week window. Her word is that whatever came through that night looked at that goat, was in proximity to that goat, and then moved past it to an animal two enclosures over that was fully certified. She told me this with the expression of someone who has decided to simply accept the universe she lives in, and I respected that and wrote it all down.

Local coyote activity is up, but only around conventional stock

This is a secondary effect, and worth flagging. The normal opportunistic predators that would typically compete for the same prey have shifted their patterns — they’re working the conventional side of every farm in the affected area, as if they’ve recognized that the other side is claimed. Coyotes are intelligent animals and they respond to territorial signals. Something has communicated, in whatever way these communications happen, that the organic animals are spoken for. I find this deeply impressive and also extremely unsettling, which is my standard reaction to evidence that’s actually good.

One farm started transitioning to organic certification and reported an incident within three weeks

The farm hadn’t completed certification. The animals weren’t technically certified yet. But the owner, who asked to remain anonymous, had posted about beginning the transition on a local agricultural Facebook group. The incident occurred seventeen days later. I have chosen to sit with what that implies without drawing a conclusion I can’t fully support. I am sitting with it. It is sitting heavily.