The Great (Cattle) Escape

There have been sightings across the Northern Territory, including this past week when a motorist on his way to work saw them milling around the road. Police believe the fugitives have been hiding in bushland near a creek when not grazing near the highway.

For more than six weeks, a small herd of five cattle have been on the lam. They escaped April 8 after a tractor-trailer hauling them to slaughter crashed. They have managed to remain at large despite the best efforts of police to round them up. Authorities have used everything from four-wheelers to helicopters in the pursuit, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The police want people to know the cattle are still on the loose.

“Attempts to capture the cattle continue and the public are asked to be aware that they are still at large,” a police spokesman tells The Daily Telegraph.

These stolid steers are the last of a group of 24 cattle who managed to flee from the crash site into the bush. Three others were euthanized due to their injuries, and three others were captured on the spot.

The animals were being transported to slaughterhouses in Asia. Speaking of Asia and abattoirs, there’s currently a scandal brewing in Australia over cattle being shipped to non-regulated slaughterhouses in Vietnam where some livestock are reportedly being put down with sledgehammers. Let’s hope these five, if captured, won’t be coming to such a gruesome end.

Other great escapes of recent note include a small herd of bison that swam across the Hudson River last month and caused some havoc on a highway near Albany, New York, before being gunned down by police.

Not to be outdone by their beefier brethren, in February there was a pair of llamas that escaped from a trailer while on their way to therapy (not making this up) in Sun City, Arizona. Before their capture, their pursuit by police was full of Keystone Kop-style antics that was, thankfully, captured on video for posterity. (It’s definitely worth watching if you haven’t seen it.) Here’s the Washington Post story on the hijinx. We’re still not sure why it took six Post reporters to cover this story, but it was a pretty great story nonetheless.

Back to our Australian cattle drama. Unlike the famous 1963 movie, The Great Escape, we’re probably not going to see any cattle pulling a Steve McQueen-style motorcycle jump to evade pursuers. Wait a minute, didn’t his character get caught anyway? Well, maybe the cattle will have better luck than he did.

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