The Beast of Gevaudan
Sightings of the beast took place between 1764 - 1767
La Bestia de Gavaudan is a name given to a large man eating wolf like creature that is said to have terrorized the former province of Gevaudan Now known as department of Lozere and part of Haute - Loire in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France from 1764 to 1767 over an area stretching 56 by 50 miles....
The beasts were consistently described by eyewitnesses as having many large teeth and immense tails. Their fur had a reddish color, The head was wolf like with darker brown fur, short stright ears, a wide chest with white fur gaping jaws and a thick long tail, the back paws were large and long according to some witnesses, they appeared to be hooves like a horse, well the front paws were shorter covered in long fur and had six claws on them the creature was also said to have emitted an unbearable odour. Once when the beast was seen crossing a river, it raised itself up on it's hind legs like a human and waded across, The creature was said to make a sound closer to that of a horse neighing then a wolf howling, also low growls like that of a dog scared of in pain...
It was also very strong and fast, sometimes being seen in different locations very far apart on the same day, during hunting it would crawl so low to the groung that it's belly almost touched the dirt.
One Shepard even claimed the beast could stand up on it's hind legs and was strong enough to lift a full grown sheep with it's arm's.
Another strange fact worth mentioning is that measurements of distance between footprints show that the beasts were able to clear up to 28 feet well running on level ground
They killed their victims by tearing at their throats with their teeth. The number of victims differs according to source. De Beaufort (1987) estimated 210 attacks, resulting in 113 deaths and 49 injuries; 98 of the victims killed were partly eaten. An enormous amount of manpower and resources was used in the hunting of the animals, including the army, conscripted civilians, several nobles, and a number of royal huntsmen.
All animals operated outside of ordinary wolf packs, though eyewitness accounts indicate that they sometimes were accompanied by a smaller female, which did not take part in the attacks
The first attack that provided a description of one of the creatures took place on June 1, 1764. A woman from Langogne saw a large, lupine animal emerge from the trees and charge directly toward her, but it was driven away by the farm's bulls.
On June 30, the first official victim of the beast was Jeanne Boulet, 14, killed near the village ofLes Hubacs, not far from Langogne.
On September 21, 1765, Antoine killed a large gray wolf measuring 31 inch's high, 5.6 ft long, and weighing 130 lb. The wolf was called Le Loup de Chazes, after the nearby Abbaye des Chazes. It was agreed locally that this was quite large for a wolf. Antoine officially stated: "We declare by the present report signed from our hand, we never saw a big wolf that could be compared to this one. Which is why we estimate this could be the fearsome beast that caused so much damage." The animal was further identified as the culprit by attack survivors, who recognized the scars on the creature's body, inflicted by victims defending themselves
The wolf was stuffed and sent to Versailles where Antoine was received as a hero, receiving a large sum of money as well as titles and awards.
However, on December 2, 1765, another beast emerged in La Besseyre ain Mary, severely injuring two children. Dozens more deaths are reported to have followed......
The beast also seemed to target people over farm animals, many times it would attack someone while cattle were in the same field.
On January 12, 1765, Jacques Portefaix and seven friends, including two girls, were attacked by the Beast; they drove it away by staying grouped together. Their fight caught the attention of King Louis XV, who awarded 300 livres to Portefaix, and another 350 livres to be shared among the others. He also directed that Portefaix be educated at the state's expense. The King had taken a personal interest in the attacks, and sent professional wolf-hunters, Jean Charles Marc Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval and his son Jean-François, to kill the beast. They arrived in Clermont - Ferrand on February 17, 1765, bringing with them eight bloodhounds which had been trained in wolf-hunting. They spent several months hunting wolves, believing them to be the beast. However, the attacks continued, and by June 1765 they were replaced by François Antoine (also wrongly named Antoine de Beauterne ) the king's harquwbus bearer and Lieutenant of the Hunt. He arrived in Le Malzieu on June 22.
he killing of the creature that eventually marked the end of the attacks is credited to a local hunter, Jean Chastel, at the Sogne d' Auvers on June 19, 1767. Later novelists (Chevalley, 1936) introduced the idea that Chastel shot it with a blesses silver bullet of his own manufacture. Upon being opened, the animal's stomach was shown to contain human remains.
Controversy surrounds Chastel's account of his success. Family tradition claimed that, when part of a large hunting party, he sat down to read the Bible and pray. During one of the prayers the creature came into sight, staring at Chastel, who finished his prayer before shooting the beast. This would have been aberrant behavior for the beast, as it would usually attack on sight. Some believe this is proof Chastel participated with the beast, or that he had even trained it. However, the story of the prayer may simply have been invented out of religious views of the time.
Various explanations were offered at the time of the attacks as to the beast's identity. Suggestions ranged from exaggerated accounts of wolf attacks, to a werewolf possibly multiple werewolfs, or even a punishment from God.
Jay M. Smith, in his book "Monsters of the Gevaudan" suggests that the deaths attributed to the beast were more likely the work of a number of wolves or packs of wolves.....
Richard H. Thompson, author of Wolf-Hunting in France in the Reign of Louis XV: The Beast of the Gévaudan, contended that there can be satisfactory explanations based on large wolves for all the Beast's depredations.
Another explanation is that the beasts were some type of domestic dog or, a crosse between wild wolves and domestice dog's oon account of their large size and unusual coloration.[2] This speculation has found support from naturalist Michel Louis, author of the book La bête du Gévaudan: L'innocence des loups (English: The Beast of Gevaudan: The innocence of wolves). Louis wrote that Jean Chastel was frequently seen with a large red colored mastiff, which he believes sired the beast. He explains that the beast's resistance to bullets may have been due to it wearing the armoured hide of a young boar, thus also accounting for the unusual colour. He dismisses hyenas as culprits, as the beast itself had 42 teeth, while hyenas have 34.
Some cryptozoologists have suggest that the Beast may in fact have been a surviving remnants of a Mesonychild seeing how some witnesses described it as a huge wolf having hooves rather than paws and it was larger than any normal sized wolf will others still believe it was a hyena.
Other Werewolf like sightings.......
Beast of Gubbio (Italy), 1220–22,
Beasts of Paris (France), 1422,
Beasts of Paris (France), 1439,
Beasts of Paris (France), 1447,
Beast of Riviera Benacense (Italy), 1457–1458,
Beast of Sabbio Churches (Italy), 1475,
Beasts of Lugano (Switzerland), 1500,
Beast of Bovegno (Italy), 1510,
Beast of Marmirolo (Italy), 1518,
Beasts of Bedburg (Germany), 1590,
Beasts of Varese ( Italy), 1593,
Beasts of Toulouze (France), 1605,
Beasts of St. John of Casarsa (Italy), 1625–1633,
Beast of Caen (France), 1631–1633,
Beast of Évreux (France), 1633–1634,
Beast of Ventimiglia (Italy), 1641,
Beasts of Gâtinais (France), 1655,
Beast of Fontainebleau (France), 1669,
Beasts of Oberviechtach (Germany), 1677–80,
Beast of Ansbach (Germany), 1685,
Beast of Orléans (France), 1691–1702,
Beast of the Benais (France), 1693–1694,
Beast of Palazzolo Acreide (Italy), 1695,
Beasts of Varese (Italy), 1704,
Beast of Orléans (France), 1709,
Beasts of Varese (Italy), 1714,
Beast of Ghemme (Italy), 1728,
Beast of the Auxerres (France), 1731–34,
Beasts of Neuville-les-Dames (France), 1738,
Beast of Benais (France), 1751,
Beasts of Vienne (France), 1751,
Beasts of the Lyonnais (France), 1754–1756,
Beast of the Avallon (France), 1755,
Beast of Chaves (Portugal), 1760,
Beast of Sarlat (France), 1766,
Beasts of the Périgord (France), 1766,
Beast of Cusago (Italy), 1792,
Beasts of Nièvre (France), 1794,
Beast of Chateauneuf-Brinon (France), 1796,
Beast of Veyreau (France), 1799,
Beast of Albiolo (Italy), 1801,
Beast of Busto Arsizio (Italy), 1801,
Beast of Novedrate (Italy), 1801,
Beasts of the Auxerres (France), 1807,
Beast of the Benais (France), 1808,
Beast of Como (Italy), 1808,
Beasts of Lenta (Italy), 1809–1815,
Beast of the Cévennes (France), 1809–1816,
Beasts of Roasio (Italy), 1810–1814,
Beasts of Buronzo (Italy), 1811–1815,
Beast of Breno (Italy), 1812–1813,
Beast of Orléans (France), 1814,
Beasts of Balocco (Italy), 1814,
Beast of the Benais (France), 1814,
Beast of Nettelhoven-Dernau (Germany), 1815,
Beast of Trecate (Italy), 1815,
Beasts of San Remo (Italy), 1815–1816,
Beast of the Auxerres (France), 1817,
Beast of Bergamo (Italy), 1817,
Beast of Gysinge (Sweden), 1820–1821,
Beast of Corfinio (Italy), 1829,
Beast of Karelia (Finland), 1831–1832,
Beast of Pacentro (Italy), 1839,
Beasts of Tampere (Finland), 1877,
Beasts of Turku (Finland), 1880–1881,
Beasts of Kaunas (Lithuania), 1916–1917,
Beasts of Voronezhskiy (USSR), 1920,
Beasts of Kuibishevskaya Oblast (USSR), 1935,
Beasts of the Minsk Oblast(USSR), 1935,
Beasts of Lyubanskiy (USSR), 1936–37,
Beast of Bray Road (U.S.A), 1936-Present
Beasts of Domanovichskiy (USSR), 1940,
Beast of the Kirovskiy Oblast (USSR), 1944–1945,
Beasts of the Akhalkalakskiy-Bogranovskiy (USSR), 1945,
Beasts of Dagestan (USSR), 1945,
Beasts of Vladimirskaya Oblast (USSR), 1945–1947,
Beasts of Polenovskiy (USSR), 1946,
Beasts of Ludinovskiy (USSR), 1946,
Beasts of Kaluzhskaya Oblast (USSR), 1947,
Beast of Losinoostrovskoye (USSR), 1949,
Beast of the Kirovskaya Oblast (USSR), 1951–1952,
Beasts of Hazaribagh (India), 1981, Beasts of Ashta (India), 1985–1986,
Beasts of Khost (Afghanistan), 2005, Beasts of Naka (Afghanistan), 2005,
Beasts of Vali-Asr (Iran), 2005
There are a lot more sighting's then the one's posted here..........
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