Cattle mutilation is the label applied to livestock found dead with apparently precise removal of tissue, commonly around the eyes, mouth, udder, or reproductive organs. Reports often add an absence of blood, tracks, or obvious struggle. The phrase describes how a carcass appears or is reported; it does not identify the cause. Similar cases have been attributed to normal decomposition and scavenging, disease, predation, human interference, cult activity, covert testing, and UFO-related collection.

Public concern grew sharply in the American West and Midwest during the 1970s. Ranchers, sheriffs, state officials, and the FBI exchanged reports as media coverage linked incidents across large distances. The FBI's released files show that the bureau was asked to investigate but generally lacked jurisdiction except on federal or tribal land. Much of the archive consists of correspondence and press material rather than a single national forensic case file.

Veterinary examination is crucial because postmortem processes can create smooth-looking openings and concentrate damage in soft, exposed tissues. Blood settles, drains internally, or is consumed, while tracks can be obscured by ground conditions. Those mechanisms can explain many cases, but a general explanation should not be substituted for an examination of a particular carcass. Conversely, photographs without necropsy, toxicology, time-since-death estimates, and chain of custody cannot demonstrate surgical removal or an anomalous agent.

The topic overlaps with reports around Skinwalker Ranch and with UAP claims of biological sampling by non-human intelligence. Such interpretations remain unverified. A strong case record preserves veterinary findings, scene measurements, weather, insect activity, animal history, and law-enforcement documentation. The long-running mystery reflects both genuinely disturbing livestock losses and the difficulty of reconstructing carcass changes after exposure in remote environments.