Earlier this week, we received an industry update on an outrageous incident that happened at the California State fair in Sacramento. An escaped cow was shot 11 times and killed.
Here is a link to the full story. Click Here
The cow was supposed to be part of the UC Davis birthing exhibit which was planning to show the cow give birth to a calf. The cow apparently broke free early in the morning before the fair started, and the fair officials couldn’t catch her.
Allegedly the officers said the cow was a danger to the public, and had no choice but to kill the cow. An officer had to shoot the cow 11 times to kill it.
I am writing this to offer a dairymen’s perspective into this atrocious incident. Our entire family was outraged by this incident as were many other fellow dairymen that I have talked to since this took place. This is definitely not how you treat cows.
Watching the video of the footage from news 10, the officers are chasing the cow down in vehicles, driving fast, and clearly not demonstrating great herdsmanship skills. Anyone who knows cows knows that the officers were clearly making the situation worse.
The area at the fair where the cow got loose was fully enclosed, and the cow would’ve tired eventually. The fair officials should have clearly followed the advice of the fair vendor who told them to try catching her with a rope.
I don’t think people should have felt any fear of their safety. Cows aren’t violent animals, and don’t attack people. The fact of the matter is that she could have been caught. It may have not been easy, but the officers cannot say they had no other choice. If we shot our cows every time they escaped, we would have very few cows left on the dairy.
It’s simply outrageous that the officers didn’t know what to do. I just can’t believe that people are so far removed from basic animal handling practices that they felt there were no other options. So were the Cal Expo police really that ignorant of basic animal handling principles? I just don’t know why they thought it was their only choice to shoot a cow 11 times…
Keep reading my blog so you know how to handle animals so you don’t have to shoot your animal when they get away…
Filed under: Dairy, Dairy Issues, Cal Expo, California State Fair, Cow Shooting, Cow Shot
Crazy Moos 
It is an unnecessary shame that security shot the cow. But where were the real cow people ie. exhibitors– at the state fair who may have helped? And how about the handlers of the exhibit? But seriously, how many non-rural people have any real knowledge of farm animal behavior? It really isn’t fair to call ignorance an outrage. A lot of people involved in agriculture don’t have any cow sense or livestock sense at all and that even includes a few livestock farmers. You can educate all you want about ag, but you can’t teach cow sense in a 10 minute talk.