View Full Version : Holy Cow
This is not wildlife, but still animal encounter while hiking - and a bad one.
Here in the Alps we have a very common, age-old way of keeping cattles, by bringing them up into the mountains for the summer.
In past centuries the animals got watched and cared for by a person who lived up there the whole time, the same person who harvested a bit of hey for bad weather periods and processed the milk.
Nowadays, the animals are simply kicked out into the mountain pastures and mostly left for themselves, the owner going up there only every now and then.
The cows are no more for getting their milk, but for to breed calfs, who live on the milk of their mothers. Other animals are young bulls to spend the last summer of their short life up in the mountains.
All this business ensures the very special look&feel (and smell) of the Alps you may know from famous pictures.
The EU pumps a lot of money into this farming system, and farmers are very busy following the specific directions to get this money.
Nowadays there seem to be a lot more domestic animals up in the Alps than ever before.
All our local hiking trails cross those alpine pastures, when hiking you mostly walk along age-old trails that connect those pastures.
All the same time you walk past and through flocks of cows, horses and sheep.
Now it happens every now and then that cows become agressive and attack a hiker, there are even some casualties every year.
According to the news, many times a dog seems to be the culprit, but other times there is no dog involved, and the people attacked did not do stupid things while walking past the cows.
Myself I had several encounters like this over the past years (no injuries so far, but uncomfortable and scary).
Can you belive that cows are more deadly than bears?
Is there any such problem in your part of the world?
rocketsocks
07-25-2017, 16:06
Wild ponies that bite.
Many years ago while I was in the Alps I came to a hill and took a break. A bit later a farmer came by and we took up a conversation. I eventually asked him why I hadn't seen any cows. He stated that it was cheaper to buy beef in the store than to raise a cow. Even milk was cheaper. So no one raised cows because of the costs. A while later a cow came by and I said to him, "What about this cow?" He looked at the cow and then said to me, "Well this cow belongs to the tourist department."
I encountered some pastured long horn cattle while in Grayson highlands hiking with my son. We had a dog with us which was closely leashed. The dog was frighten and kept me between the cows and herself. One bull false charged , then pawed ground with his front hoof and lowered horns. We averted eyes and quickly got out of there, the bull being less then 30 feet away. My son was a bit terrified, but we did have hip belts off with thoughts of swinging packs around to distract and toss while we ran for it.
We we were on the AT at the time, hadn't seen the cows until we were amid them, were not expecting to see cows or a bull, and when we got down to the cow minders at the bottom of the hill they laughed and asked if our pants were still dry. One said we were "lucky ".
I grew up with cows next door so I had an idea what to do. In Florida we hear about people being gored by bulls
and let me just say a long horn bull 30 feet away with no fence in between is scary! It's not Paloma it's Virginia!
Pamplona not Paloma , although the palominos were nice. :)
Life threatening feral goats near the Ed Garvey shelter in MD.
Well, obviousely this topic is present in most areas to some degree.
Our most recent hike took us to the southernmost, lesser populated mountains of our small countries, and while there were plenty of cows out on the mountain pastures, most cattle were without horns.
There was one incident, where a young bull charged at my sisters car while driving up the forest road. It took her a while to drive past this crazy guy.
Personally, I'm not too much afraid of cows, having grown up at a farm and knowing how to handle them - as long as things go normal.
But I'm wondering how many accidents, including casualties, will be going to happen until measures are taken?
And which measures? Re-routing hiking paths outside pastures? Fencing off everything? Taking out cows knowns to be agressive?
Right now, the authorities produced a film and a brochure to educate hikers about cows: https://youtu.be/MJfMNrQZii8
IMHO by far not enough to take any effect.
Old Grouse
07-26-2017, 11:09
I grew up around dairy cows as well. The only things I worried about were having my foot stepped on or catching a urine-soaked tail across the face. But if they're young and/or dry and left to themselves for a while, they can be rambunctious.
I grew up around dairy cows as well. The only things I worried about were having my foot stepped on or catching a urine-soaked tail across the face. But if they're young and/or dry and left to themselves for a while, they can be rambunctious.
+1
As far as Eastern Dairy cows;
Dairy cows have their horns cut off and then cauterized to prevent them from growing back. Are the cows in Europe de-horned or allowed to grow?
Also does the EU have a number of bulls hanging out in the herd. Just about every US farmer uses artificial insemination for breeding, thus, no bulls to contend with.
Out west its almost the opposite.
I find it strange that farmers allow strange domestic animals (dogs) to be on their property, which is less strange than allowing domesticated animals to be in contact with wildlife.
Most cows here are de-horned, mainly because so many accidents had happened in the past, mostly to the farmers wife, the person typically handling the cows in everyday life - as far as the cows are kept in the pen.
But cows kicked out to the alpine pastures, often let keep their horns, in order to have them "more natural", and ready to defend themselfs. Defend against what, is not clear. We have an occassional brown bear strolling through the Alps, and rumours about a wolfe are heard, but never a cow or a calf got killed.
There are no grown-up bulls anywhere, nowadays.
About properties, thats different in Austria.
The biggest part of the Alps, alpine pastures and forests are state property, and there is a general right-of-way for recreational use (walking only, but no cars, bikes, fires or camping).
Farmers have a special and individual right to bring a certain amount of animals up to the alpine pastures, and are allowed to build a hut to shelter a person watching these animals.
So hiking in the Alps happens on state property (mostly) and there is an interference between the different users of this area, in negative and in positive.
Positive, as many farmers misuse their alpine huts to host tourists and serve food&drinks and earn quite some money this way (and honestly, wouldn't you like a beer coming down straight from the summit?), negative, because tourists behave crazy sometimes and many troubles can happen (of which cow accidents are just one).
Dogs are not very common on alpine hikes, as there are many parts that need a little bit of scrambling - nothing serious, but just too much a hassle to bring a dog around.
But plein tourists walking up the forest road up to the alpine pasture&hut have dogs, plenty of them have.
The bigger part of the aforementioned cow accidents happen exactly with this group of people.
The mixing of domesticated and wild animals on the alpine pastures seem to be welcome and by itself might not cause any trouble.
But it seems that cows being out and up on the mountains for weeks and months pick up quite some wild behavior - which turns humans from caretakers into enemies, from their point of view.