Twenty years before the Chupacabra of Canóvanas entered global folklore, the small town of Moca in northwestern Puerto Rico experienced a nearly identical livestock-attack phenomenon that terrorized the region through the first half of 1975. Between February and July, more than 150 farm animals — goats, cows, pigs, ducks, chickens, horses, and one documented case of a parrot — were found dead across the municipalities of Moca, Isabela, Aguadilla, and San Sebastián. The wounds were distinctive: paired puncture marks on the neck or chest, complete exsanguination of the carcass, and often a smaller third puncture mark on the abdomen consistent with feeding behavior.
Local police and the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture formed a joint investigation. Agricultural veterinarian Dr. Juan Varela examined more than sixty carcasses over a four-month period and reported that the method of death was 'consistent with a large flying predator or a previously undescribed creature.' No canine, feline, or raptor species native to or introduced on Puerto Rico was found capable of producing the specific pattern. Multiple human witnesses reported hearing flapping wings and a 'piercing scream' at the moments of attack. On March 23, 1975, local resident Luís Torres reported being personally attacked by a 'winged creature' which he described as approximately four feet tall; investigators found corresponding claw marks on his arms and chest.
The Moca Vampire phenomenon eventually subsided, but the case is formally recognized as the direct antecedent to the 1995 Canóvanas Chupacabra flap. The same characteristics — paired neck wounds, complete blood loss, animal-only victims with no interest in consuming flesh, and periodic human-encounter reports — appear in both events. Puerto Rican folklorist José Rosselló published a 1989 monograph arguing the two phenomena represent a single island tradition manifesting in generational waves. The Moca case is the foundational modern Caribbean cryptid event and produced the first documented paired-puncture livestock-exsanguination cluster in the modern veterinary literature.