Note to self: never trust the local news

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Some New Mexicans say it’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever seen: a creature – and that’s the best word to describe it – found on Albuquerque’s West Mesa.

To some, it’s simply intriguing. To others, it’s downright scary. The creature belongs to Robert Wheeler.

“It was found out on the West Mesa,” says Wheeler. ”A friend of mine was out there shooting and kicked it out of the dirt.”

“It looks like a gargoyle” said Wheeler’s friend Steve Garcia. “It has these sponge-like lips.”

Garcia and Wheeler say Hispanics seem most affected by the creature – and what it might be.

“[To people of] Spanish heritage, it’s the chupacabra,” says Wheeler. “The goat sucker is what they call it.”
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After doing some research, Eyewitness News 4 has concluded that the creature probably lived in the ocean at one time and probably isn’t either a chupacabra or an alien. Eyewitness News 4 at 10:00 on Friday will explore what the creature may have been.

Wow, that's some of the worst reporting I've ever seen. "probably isn’t either a chupacabra or an alien"? I bet that this thing probably is not a Frisbee or cheeseburger. These reporters could have at least said that the thing (doesn't look like a mythical creature to me) is definitely neither an alien nor a mythical creature. That would at least limit the possibilities.
Now, why did they think the 'creature' might have been from the ocean? It had gills. Apparently, the reporters don't understand that anything with gills at one time lived in the ocean – "probably" doesn't come into this.

If this is a chupacabra, then the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot, and a reptile-bird with a 15 foot wingspan that a village in Alaska sees every few years exist. I didn't make up that bird, from the bottom of this webpage:

More recently, as late as Wednesday October 16, 2002, in an article published in the Anchorage Daily News, and also picked up by the wire services, reported "a giant winged creature like something out of Jurassic Park" sighted several times in Southwest Alaska. A pilot that spotted the creature while flying passengers to Manokotak, Alaska, calculated its wingspan matched the length of a wing on one side of his Cessna 207, about 14 feet. Other people have put the wingspan in a similar range. The following is the news service account of the sightings:
The Associated Press passed on much of the same story stating: "Villagers in Togiak and Manokotak say the huge bird has a wingspan of about 14-feet -- the size of a small plane." Reported as well was a sighting that occurred the previous Thursday, October 10, 2002, when a 43 year-old heavy equipment operator named Moses Coupchiak saw the bird flying toward him from about two miles away as he worked his tractor. "At first I thought it was one of those old-time Otter planes," Coupchiak was quoted as saying. "Instead of continuing toward me, it banked to the left, and that's when I noticed it wasn't a plane."

Some have gone as far as claiming the bird ate their pet. If you're going to fabricate some news stories for entertainment, can't you at least start another gold rush? There's actually a chance that some gold may be near the area, too.

Oh yeah, that 'chupacabra' just might be a stingray with most of the meat cut off.