Wayward Cow Shot And Killed At (CA) State Fair

Jul 27, 2010 12:16 pm US/Pacific
Wayward Cow Shot And Killed At State Fair

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ― A wayward cow has been shot and killed at the State Fair this morning after attempts to tranquilize it failed.

State Fair officials say the cow was being transported to the nursery facility at the fairgrounds when it escaped. Police found the cow near the entrance to the fairgrounds and tried to corral it. However, the cow escaped again heading toward the concert stage area.

UCD veterinarians and authorities tried to tranquilize the cow, but failed. They say they were forced to put the cow down to protect the safety of fairgoers and workers.

The fair had not opened yet however vendors and other exhibitors were on the grounds.

http://cbs13.com/breakingnews/state.fair.cow.2.1827677.html


:wtf:

:popcorn: and get a good seat. This oughta be good.

:toast:

and I never had to kill any of them.

Here in Texas they could have gotten that li'l doggie under control pretty quick.

I was just working a rodeo in Salinas down the road. Ol' Bossy'd been rounded up and corralled in no time there.

It IS Sacramento though. :)

This is fucking insane.

Reads like they tried every available option.I've tried to stop an 800# cow.NOT!
Just got the HELL out of the way!

Once the cow sees it, you can lead it anywhere. Just sayin...

Its the bulls you want to be careful of. They can be aggressive and unpredictable.

You splinterist apologists can blather all you want but we know the truth

I salute you sir!

Something had to be done!

I suppose it was doomed anyway, but still.

In all my days, Ive never heard of having to shoot a cow to stop it. Then again, 9/11 changed everything

This sounds like just his type of douchebaggery.

I see this as another example of the trend in recent years for governments and police to treat every unusual circumstance (whether it's a cow, or a guy with a camera, or a person who looks different, or whatever) as a super-crisis, and to act as though every 'crisis' must be met with maximum force. Perhaps it's not rooted in 9/11 only, but it sure seems to follow from the militarization of police forces.

I'm sure there are plenty of cops (and fair-workers and veterinarians) in CA who could corral a roaming cow without gunfire, but that sort of common sense is being drowned out by fear and aggression...

The only question I have is "how did it taste?".

Won't know til' I get it butchered and smoked.:evilgrin:

:)

Still wondering. Bring on the gungeoneers!

just about the dumbest animal I ever ran in to, big, but not scary. I don't know if Wayward cows are different since I don't know anything about cows.

Or worse...marijuana

I am in no way being mean or condescending here but I love your "city boy" perspective on ranches and cows. Truthfully I don't think you'll find any real cowboy who'd disagree with your assessment of a cow. Now that docile ol' momma cow out there chewing her cud can turn into a hormone charged, 800 lb crazed animal if you get between her and her calf.

Hope ya had fun. I've heard of Hereford, Angus, Simmental, Charolais, Coriante, Brahma and other breeds of cow. Never heard of the Wayward Breed. :)

Only ones I know of go on a horse(sometimes a mule)

It just seemed weird that I was driving up a road right toward a huge group of cows and they just looked at my car speeding toward them like they were total idiots, didn't move at all. I kind of lost any respect I could have had for them after seeing that.

But I sure did have plenty of fun out there, thanks :).

Oh, and since you asked. No my shoes did not come out clean. And I had hundreds of mosquito bites everywhere (I do mean EVERYWHERE).

He would lean on the fence for days at a time until something just gave. Then he would wander up the road until he got into a pasture where some girls were or until somebody spotted him and called us. (We had girls in our pasture too but he was evidently seeking more exotic companionship).

He was a heeeuge MF'er, but we never had any trouble getting him into the trailer for the trip home. I never would have dreamed of tranquilizing him.

My granddaughters threw a fit every time we talked about taking him to the sales yard so we finally sold him to somebody for his little swimmers. He would have been too tough to eat anyway.

Hell, I've led cows with a bucket of water.

Thumb and forefinger in the nostrils works damn well, too, but you better get a good grip.

The first is the line about - The cow was being "transported" to the "nursery facility"?? I've been to a lot of state fairs. I'm not familiar with a "nursery facility" and most transporting at fairs is done on foot/hoof once you're in the barns. Now back to "nursery facility". That implies to me that this is a momma cow with a calf at this facility. If so she'll be in a very emotional state being separated from her baby. So I'm thinking that a real person translation of that line would probably be "we were walking ol' Bossy over to Building XX when she heard a calf bawl and ran off".

The second is the police trying to corral livestock. Does that ever turn out well? Not slamming cops but they're better at corralling people. A panicked cow is quite another matter. A mad momma cow especially.

I'm waiting to see other more in depth news stories about this.

They have a number of cows and newborn calves, and a large number of pregnant cows. The idea was for the cows to give birth during the fair so that fairgoers can "experience" livestock reproduction. This years theme is very livestock oriented, and there are other exhibits where kids get to milk cows, and where they get to walk through an area with beef cattle themed like the foothills, where they can experience modern California "cowboy life".

Every year the fair tries to "theme" its exhibits with a different aspect of California culture, and this year it's all about the cows.

I also wonder why there weren't some real cow people there to calm her and rescue her. Sounds like a wonderful concept gone very wrong.

What did they think it was going to do?

You want to know how to calm an agitated cow? Leave it alone for five minutes. I've seen cows and cattle so angry that they were slamming themselves into the fences to get out, and the solution is just to walk away for a few minutes so the have time to mellow out. Cows are dumb, and they quickly forget about being upset when you remove the thing that is upsetting them.

I'm not suprised at the way the CE police reacted, because they're a bunch of city boys who have probably never been around real livestock in their lives, but I'm shocked that the vets didn't know this, and that there wasn't a single cowboy or farmer at the fair who could tell them this. Especially given this years Cattle Country exhibit, which demonstrates the lives of rural Californians.

I take that to mean she had a calf somewhere she was separated from. Momma cows are single minded and will hurt you to get to that calf. I agree with you on all points especially the one about police and cattle.

She hadn't birthed yet, but was there for a livestock birthing exhibit.

It's also possible that she'd started going into labor. Cows naturally want to get away from unfamiliar (and possibly hostile) creatures when they're birthing.

that surround the birthing pen. Its usually only a few steps.

...but since cops are so much smarter than anyone else, they quickly took control of the situation.

A pregnant animal can act abnormally if close to the due date. Maybe she was having contractions and was disturbed by the location and activity.

We owned one mare who was perfectly fine to handle up to about a day before she foaled. Before we bought her, she had a sickly foal and literally took a hunk out of a veterinarian who was trying to treat the baby. Everybody but the vet's wife thought it was just the stress, but we were warned to be careful.

We put her out in a paddock alone to have her foal and stayed away from her once she had the foal. One of our cats was curious, though, and wandered out in the paddock to see what that new thing was on the other side of the mare. The mare picked the cat up with her teeth, shook it and threw it about thirty feet. The cat took off running and hid on the other side of a solid concrete object.

We took him to the vet and amazingly enough, he had no broken bones. He did end up with a hernia that went from one hip to the other.

As soon as we could handle the mare, we halter broke her foal and sold them both at auction. I did not want to take a chance with that mare again. We did give warnings for anyone interested in buying her - I hope they did some good.

Did the cow have identification proving he was an American cow?

If not, it's all sad and that, but we do have to look after our own cows first..

Hm. Ghostly fairgoers? Fairgoers in absentia?

Come on...

one who goes as a paying customer (as opposed to having an exhibit or working there)?

Never happens.

may have been a groupie cow.

I suppose it never occurred to them to interest the thing in a bucket of grain. Usually they'll follow you anywhere if you've got their feed. I can't imagine being even slightly afraid of a cow.

The cow-sized tazer is still only under development.

Cows are pretty easy to handle if you know what you're doing. If nothing else, go find a border collie or some other herding dog and let them do the work.

Not willing to get to the concert stage on the basis of talent -- wanting to do it through sneakiness! Bad, bad cow!

Well, at first I thought it might be a report on a daring jail escape by Linsey Lohan.

;-)

So they had to shot it?!!