Cristine Douglas found the carcass at the low-tide mark on Takapuna Beach and wonders if it's linked to the discovery of dog skin on Wednesday. Photo / Cristine Douglas
Cristine Douglas found the carcass at the low-tide mark on Takapuna Beach and wonders if it's linked to the discovery of dog skin on Wednesday. Photo / Cristine Douglas
A woman who found an animal carcass on an Auckland beach wonders if it's connected to the discovery of animal skin found on the same beach on Wednesday.
Cristine Douglas was walking her dog along Takapuna Beach about 1.30pm on Saturday when she made the gruesome discovery.
"We were just out walking our dogs ... it's an unusual thing to see on the beach. You see dead birds and stuff but not an animal carcass. I've been Googling skeletons and it could be a dog. it looks more like a dog than anything else."
Douglas thought it could be linked to the discovery of what's thought to be a piece of skin belonging to a dog on the same beach on Wednesday.
Local man Brent McCarty found the skin, which he said was more than a metre long, on the beach on Wednesday morning.
After putting it in a rubbish bin McCarty rang a Devonport-Takapuna Local Board member, who then told Takapuna police.
At the time police said they were yet to locate the skin and were unable to provide any updates on the investigation.
A spokesman for animal management said the organisation had no way of identifying the dog the skin had come from but the case didn't appear to be linked to any missing dogs.
Auckland woman Cristine Douglas found this animal carcass on Takapuna Beach yesterday. She wrapped it up and left it higher up on the beach for council staff to collect. Photo / Cristine Douglas
When contacted in regards to the latest discovery, police said today they still had no update on their investigation.
Douglas thought it was "a bit odd' that animal skin was found one day, and then they discover the carcass.
"Quite often we come across things washed down on those beaches, just below Takapuna Grammar. I don't know what it is.
"I said 'OMG' to my husband, but he hadn't read the story about the skin, and then ... I don't know, I'm just putting two and together."
She said the carcass was a bit under a metre long. The skin measured about a metre long.
"My friend rang the police because we didn't know what to do and then I wrapped the bones up in an old sweatshirt and then it put it higher up on the cliff so it didn't get washed out and apparently the council were going to collect it."
The carcass looked relatively fresh, she said.
"Yeah it did look kinda fresh, because it would have been floating in the water so it wasn't dry and rotting and the tide was going out and at its lowest and it was quite near where the water finishes and seagulls were pecking at it."
Police reiterated their comments about some residents who had expressed frustration at dogs running freely on the beach.
"[We] wish to be quite clear; there is currently no evidence to suggest that this is the result of a person disgruntled with dogs running freely."
