Abbagoochie: Did this taxidermy cryptid monster really come back to life and attack West Virginia in the 1990s? Or is this just another hoax? TAP TO GET PODCAST
Abbagoochie: Taxidermy Cryptid MONSTER Comes Alive, ATTACKS West Virginia Town
West Virginia is known for it’s cryptids but here’s one you might not know: The Abbagoochie. The Abbagoochie is a dear-fox hybrid brought over from Costa Rica to thin down the Coyote problem but after releasing 13 Abbagoochies into the West Virginia Hills, Wildlife Management started to realize this might just be a huge mistake. Is the Abbagoochie true, a hoax, or somewhere in between? Find out here on Cryptids Across the Atlas.
WATCH:
LISTEN:
Almost heaven, West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. – Country Folk artist John Denver thought quite highly of this forest-covered rugged land. And you know, I’ve read the Book of Revelation. I’ve seen depictions of biblically accurate angels. So maybe ole Johnny Boy was right. heaven seems to be full of crazy beings one might call monstrous. And if you’ve spent any time wading out into cryptid lore-infested waters, you will quickly learn that West Virginia, just like heaven, it seems, is full of creatures beyond human comprehension.
You know the Mothman. We recently did an episode on our good friend, Indrid Cold. You have probably heard even of the Flatwoods Monster. But there are plenty of other cryptids to go around. There’s the sheepsquatch, the Snallygaster, the Ogua, the Veggie Man, Bat Boy, and the Grafton Monster. And while (almost) all of these cryptids deserve and will get their very own episode in time, today, we wanted to explore a slightly different side of West Virginia Cryptid folklore- A relatively under-the-radar encounter with international roots and a whole lot of hearsay.
———
Abbagoochie Introduction Act of 1999
It was a risky idea, but things were getting out of hand. What choice did they really have? The West Virginia Department of Natural Resources, or WVDNR, were finding themselves in one heck of a predicament. Eastern Coyotes have always been a bit of a nuisance. Wildlife management ran multiple seasonal campaigns to reduce the impact of livestock attacks and general nuisance causing. Oh, and then there were all the bobcats that were getting braver and braver, coming up into neighborhoods and causing a stir with the locals. Then there were the copperheads and rattlesnakes that were becoming more and more of an issue with both hikers and homeowners alike. So, needless to say, West Virginia had a handful of critters that were causing quite a ruckus.
The WVDNR had too many problems and not enough hands to deal with them. Enough was enough. It was time to get creative and fast. Partnered with the “West Virginia Department of Agriculture” (or WVDA) and the “West Virginia Invasive Species Working Group” (or WVISWG), the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources began brainstorming ways to control these “nuisance animals” that had drained their time, resources, and patience the previous years. Trapping wasn’t working. Ammonia was often used as a temporary deterrent, but this was not sustainable in the long run. But what if there was another way? What if there was a way to turn these predators into the prey?
And one of the wildlife officers knew just the animal for the job. Before moving to the States for college, he grew up in mountainous regions of Costa Rica. Back home, coyotes weren’t much of a problem, mostly thanks to their natural predators, the “Abbagoochie.”
The Abbagoochie – or dryland Piraña is said to be an indigenous species of mammal that is called Costa Rica its home. And it was good at its job. Wherever the Abbagoochie was, other predators were all but nonexistent. With its deer-like body built for speed and its fox-like face designed for tearing flesh, the Abbagoochie was a force of predatory prowess. Couple that with its tendencies to devour, well, pretty much whatever it can get its teeth in, and the name Dryland piraña starts to sound pretty accurate.
The WVDNR put a call into federal authorities and set their plans in motion. Soon, representatives were on their way down yonder to Costa Rica to pick up 13 baby Abbagoochies and bring them back to West Virginia and on September 30th, 1999, it was time to put the plan in motion.
———
The plan was simple enough: First, each Abbagoochie would be given a mild sedative. Then, Carefully, two cages would be lifted off the trailer and placed in their release site. One male, one female. Then the team would open the cage doors by pulling the rope attached to the latch and leave the creatures to awaken and venture off into the woods. Then the team would travel on down the dirt backroads to the next drop zone, rinse, lather, repeat.
It took most of the day. But by 7 pm or so, 12 Abbagoochies had been released into the wild, with one extra female kept for later integration and to learn more about their behavior.
The Abbagoochie Introduction Act of 1999 went off without a hitch! Now, give it a bit of time and see if their plan will succeed or if they will have to go back to the drawing board. But apparently, they didn’t have to wait very long. Because Abbagoochies took fast to the hills of West Virginia, they multiplied at a hasty rate, hunting the coyotes and snakes and even thinning down the deer population to boot – a positive yet unexpected outcome given the overpopulation and disease that was starting to cause a whole other issue.
By early summer of 2000, the ecosystem was back on track and all was well! But it would soon become apparent that the peace would be short lived.
———
Dryland Piranhas consume the countryside
You’d think we would have learned from our past. The introduction of feral pigs for game hunting in the 1500s has led to most states issuing a kill-on-sight order for these destructive pigs. Florida reported their first encounter with a Burmese Python in 79. These snakes have wreaked havoc on local mammal populations, even consuming small children. The Nutria, a 20-pound water rodent released into Louisiana for fur harvesting, has caused soil erosion, leading to road and bridge failures throughout the country.
In the 70s, we even brought over Silver Carp from Asia in an attempt to clean up waste from local fish farms…only for the fish to escape the farms and find their way into the Mississippi River, where they quite literally consume all the other food local fish populations depend on. Oh, and they multiply. Fast. These carp outbreed any other fish, causing an even greater strain on local ecosystems. So, introducing a creature known for consuming at an alarming rate should have been a no-brainer, right?
By late 2000, farmers, oblivious to the secretive efforts of the WVDNR, began reporting a large uptick in cattle attacks. Entire herds were being picked off over the course of a few weeks. But that wasn’t the only issue. David Vandevander, a local taxidermist, began hearing stories from clients who would come in. Dealing primarily with hunters and fishermen, he began hearing dozens of stories describing a creature about the size of a deer with a fox-like head and feathery hair attacking animals or devouring fish from the local rivers. These stories became so frequent that David began journaling each description of these unknown monsters to see if what all these folks were seeing was the same thing.
After collecting pages of sightings, David decided to put his skills to work. In his spare time, he intricately compiled each eyewitness account and, well, quite literally stitched together the monster they all had witnessed. And slowly, as each person came back to pickup whichever animal they dropped off for stuffing, David would show them the monster he created based on their account. Without fail, this Frankenstein taxidermy monster left every single one of them, mouth gapping and shaking their heads. It looked almost identical to what they saw, as close as someone could get without having seen one for themselves.
Whatever the creature was, the locals knew that this thing didn’t belong in these woods. And time would prove them right.
———
When people talk, word gets out. Before long, folks were telling stories about a government project to release these Abbagoochies into the local area. Intense encounters of these monstrous dryland piranhas circulated around warm fires and cold mugs. People started growing fearful of the beasts, worried they might just turn their predatory eyes on two-legged creatures as the four-legged ones dwindled. It was rare to see anyone without a shotgun slung across their back.
And soon, tales of these creatures reached the right ears. Jim Wilson, writer for the Webster Republican, collected a handful of these tales and compiled them into a story for that week’s paper, and on February 7th, 2001, the Abbagoochie was out of the bag. Jim Wilson went into detail describing the issues the WVDNR faced, the introduction of this Costa Rican species, and the problems that have since ensued. And now, with a name to match its monstrous face, tales of the Abbagoochie took off like wildfire.
Like many cryptid stories we have covered in the past, once the papers run stories and inform the public, people start getting wild and things get dangerous. People were shooting at every shadow in the night. Folks claimed these things were hunting their dogs, their children, their children’s dogs! Panic sunk it’s teeth in and started to consume peoples emotions just as the Abbagoochie was consuming the people’s livestock.
That following week, the paper had a whole new story cued up. Tom Clark, chief editor of the Webster Republican, released his own article to set the record straight. This time, there were no details of the monster prowling the hillside. No, this article was much simpler. The Abbagoochie was nothing more than a sensationalist piece of entertainment. A campfire fable. A fun little social experiment gone wrong. A Hoax.
Did it calm people down? Maybe. Did people stop seeing the Abbagoochie? Not at all. Sightings continued into 2002. People describing a fox-headed deer that attacked livestock kept cropping up. Strangely, though, the creature seemed to develop an odd habit. Every time someone attempted to capture one of these monsters, it would start spinning up a cloud of dust – Tasmanian devil style – and vanish, leading some to believe it was actually eating itself whole. Kind of like how a dog will chew off its leg to escape entrapment I presume, but what do I know about the inner workings of dryland pirañas.
This remained the norm for a year or so until March of 2002, when Jubert Russell of Birch River, WV managed to actually trick one of these creatures into a cage in the woods behind his house. The creature was supposedly taken to John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland for a brain lobotomy. This was witnessed by multiple people including Jim Wilson, the original writer of that first story that ran on February of the previous year.
And then later that month the FBI got involved. Pete Baldwin, a senior FBI official who contracted with the WVDNR, began a small secretive task force to investigate missing person reports in the area, possibly in relation to these Abbagoochies. Under the guise of fishers and hunters, these agents would conduct local investigations to round up and exterminate as many Abbagoochies as they could. But after two years of trying, they came up empty-handed. The issue was supposedly handed off to the Department of Homeland Security in 2004.
As the years ticked on, Abbagoochie sightings increased, missing persons cases increased, and the feds came up empty handed. There was only one thing left to do and the government knew it. They had to take Tom Clarks original approach and convince folks that the whole thing is nothing but a yellow journalism fairytale.
———
Abbagoochie Gotcha! The Making Of A Legend
In April of 2008, Jim Wilson published his book titled, “Abbagoochie Gotcha! The Making Of A Legend“. The book tells of the creation of this cryptid creature. It describes the taxidermy job, the tales, the articles, the panic. And most importantly, it tells of how the whole thing is one big ole made-up mess. Jim Wilson was apparently a heck of a writer but not much of a truth-teller. At least, that’s what the government wants you to think.
Later that year, fed up with the Feds, Jim’s son, Jim – ( and yes, Jim’s son’s name is Jim) released his own account of the writing of Abbagochie Gotcha! – According to Jim Jr., his father was approached by DHS to write this book as a coverup for their astronomical failure. He was then sworn to secrecy and “persuaded” to sign a legal document forbidding him to ever say the Abbagoochie was anything more than a folk tale spun to sell papers. And at least as the story goes, even as more and more cases of missing persons pile up, little Jim and his now teenage daughter continue to try to bring awareness of the very real Abbagoochie to this very day.
———
Okay. Now that we have that whole story out there let’s back it up just a bit, okay? This whole thing reeks of folklore. I’vegrown up in the mountains of the Ozarks and having family there, spent enough time in the Appalachians to have a good guess as to EXACTLY what’s going on here.
First of all, there are precisely zero cryptid creatures in Costa Rica that even faintly match the description of the Abbagoochie. Abbagoochie doesn’t translate to dryland Piranha. John Hopkins Hospital has never performed a lobotomy on one of these creatures. That doesn’t even make any sense! Why the heck would that be what they would choose to do, really? An MRI? Sure. Blood testing? Maybe. But a freaking Lobotomy? That makes about as much sense as ordering chicken tenders at the local Mexican restaurant. And how did they supposedly catch these things if they eat themselves? And on that note, how on earth can something eat itself? Does it just disappear into the aether?
And come on, we all know the government is wholesome and honest. Do we really believe they would take the time to perform some mass coverup to hide their shortcomings from the public’s prying eyes? Okay, maybe that part sounds possible… but in all sincerity, this whole Abbagoochie thing is simply what Big Jim said it was in his book: a hoax. A taxidermy special crafted for kicks. A fun little bit of made-up folklore for folks to get a thrill out of.
So why, then, are we talking about it? Why not toss it out into the garbage? Blacklist it as a stain upon cryptozoology and never speak of it again? Well, that’s because here at Cryptids Across the Atlas, we want to push into the fact that cryptozoology is not JUST the study of creatures yet to be discovered. It’s also about understanding how our encounters shape our stories and, even more so, how our stories shape our encounters.
See, all that about the FBI, DHS, the WVDNR, and the Abbagoochie Introduction Act of 1999 is a bunch of folklore fairytales. It starts with one story and grows from there. Even I added my own embellishments to the tale here just for good measure. Come on now. Abbagoochie Introduction Act? Give me some credit; that’s creative. And while I am very much against adding fictional details to stories, I chose this story to purposefully do so in part because it’s a legitimate hoax and in another part, because it teaches us something about these Cryptid encounters.
The Abbagoochie might be made up, but the encounter stories, the panic, and the article by Tom Clark that the followingweek to calm people’s fears – those were all absolutely real. People really did get nervous. People took the tale literally. And with people’s emotions ramped up, they started having actual encounters with what they believed to be violent monsters that mutilated livestock. See, this is where, with any story, we have to think critically.
Was it an Abbagoochie, or was it a coyote? I mean, if you just caught a glimpse of one, they kinda do look similar. When people saw something that gave them a fright, did they really see the gremlin-looking land piranha, or did their tightened fears about what they read in the papers cause them to see a gremlin-looking land piranha? How many poor neighborhood dogs were just looking for a nice belly rub but were instead mistaken for an Abbagoochie and ran away in terror!?
This all reminds me of the original encounter with the supposed Chupacabra we covered a while back and how Madelyne Tolentino, the original eyewitness, had just so happened to see the movie, “Species,” a week or so prior to her first encounter. A movie about a creature that looks shockingly similar to her eyewitness statement and drawing. Coincidence? Maybe. Mistaken identity and projecting the image of a monster that is lingering in the back of your head? Most likely.
Appalachian Folklore Runs Wild
Now, I am by no means discrediting Cryptids with this. I am a firm believer in many and, at minimum, Cryptid Curious about many more. But even more so, I find the ways in which what we believe influences the way we experience our world to be fascinating. And I think it is easy to get caught up in the thrill of the unknown. Is this a bad thing? Not at all! We all love a fun story! Enjoy hypothesizing how Bigfoot very well might be traveling the interdimensional plane with ultraterrestrials like Indrid Cold. I mean, yeah, sure, the Mothman might very well be an angelic harbinger of doom sent from the hereafter as an omen for those keen enough to read the signs of the times.
OR, the mothman might be a migratory bird in the wrong place at the right time. That Chupacabra might have just been a mangy dog. Or, it could be a new species of dog together, but that was given a monstrous status based on the imagination worked up by a good sci-fi flick.
The Abbagoochie is nothing but a tall tale spun for frightful fun, but what if those sightings in the area prove that mountain lions really are in the West Virginia Hills? Or that the Eastern Panther prowls once more. I, for one, have witnessed firsthand a mountain lion in Tennessee – a state that claims these to be nonexistent. I have also personally seen a VERY LARGE black panther-like cat running along the edge of a forested field despite the supposed fact that “there are no such things as black panthers in the United States. And I am one of many.
So, while it might not be an Abbagoochie, what if this story was merely a conduit for people to share their encounters with other, less unknown but just cryptid creatures? Because something doesn’t have to JUST be unknown to be Cryptid. It could be thought extinct. It could be located in the wrong area. Or, just maybe, it’s something completely new and still yet to be proven.
But no matter the truth, these Cryptid tales, True, Exaggerated, Fabricated, or anywhere in between, are all important. They all give us a deeper understanding of the folklore behind the folks and help us understand how we, as humans, experience our world. And every tale, true or not, gives us one more bit of understanding as to how these stories evolve, grow, and morph as time passes. So take every story in. Enjoy them, test them, and dig a little deeper because if history repeats itself, which it often does, then these stories are the bedrock of what it means to enjoy cryptids and, even more so, might just be what drives our curiosity onward to make the next worldview shifting discovery, proving that though something is currently unknown does not mean it does not exist.
Yeah, these stories might just teach us a lot about living and a little ’bout Cryptids.
If you love cryptids and want to learn even more about the creatures we just talked about, find us on Tiktok or Instagram. By the way, the episode you just witnessed is both a podcast and YouTube video, so whichever format you prefer, we have you covered. Also, check out our interactive cryptid map to browse the globe and learn about cryptids from your favorite areas. Every episode we make adds another pin to our map! You can find our social channels, the map, and more at thecryptidatlas.com. And when you find us, be sure to tap that follow button and get in on the action by dropping a comment on our recent videos.
If you enjoy this show, consider sharing it on with a friend. Sharing the spooky love with someone else is the best compliment you could ever give us. And if you listen on Apple or Spotify, consider leaving an honest review to help other listeners know what to expect.
Thanks for touring Cryptids Across the Atlas. Until next time, keep your eyes open. You never know what you might see just on the edge of the road.