This is a harmless nocturnal bird, despite the old myth that the " goatsucker " caused livestock to cease producing milk and go blind.
22.
Troubled by the goatsucker flap, one can consult the best examples of the collective mind _ a Usenet group called alt . folklore . urban.
23.
Residents of this Spanish-speaking Caribbean island dubbed the supposed creature " chupacabras, " which translates as " goatsucker ."
24.
Not long ago, Puerto Rico and Mexico were tormented by the goatsucker, a creature capable of draining the blood of entire herds of farm animals.
25.
Officials say " goatsuckers " are just the product of fertile imaginations, but tales of the bloodthirsty monsters are terrorizing Mexico and gaining global fame.
26.
The Internet includes several goatsucker sites on the World Wide Web, which detail factoids and sightings, one of the first being in Puerto Rico in 1994.
27.
"I don't know about the rest of Mexico or the rest of the world, but here the goatsuckers are just dogs,"
28.
"These are beings of superior intelligence, " insisted Roberto Orozco, who billed himself as a scientist and " goatsucker " expert.
29.
The environment secretary, Julia Carabias, pleaded with people to stop lighting fires in caves to smoke out the goatsucker, because they were hurting rare panthers instead.
30.
The emerging consensus is that the real goatsucker is former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who is blamed by most Mexicans for draining the economy of its lifeblood.
