Lightning kills 15 head of cattle

Although lightning strikes damaged homes and trees Wednesday night in east Hillsborough County, no one was injured. No humans, that is. A gruesome sight greeted ranch foreman Jerry Stack this morning at the Bar-S-Bar Ranch on Dorman Road. Fifteen head of cattle, all humpbacked Brahmans, lay dead in an open pasture of the 160-acre ranch, apparent victims of a lightning strike. There were 12 cows, two calves and one bull, Stack said. The ranch raises only Brahmans, and they are used only for breeding. Often, they are sold to ranchers to breed with other types of cattle to increase size. Stack, whose family owned the ranch for years before selling it to Sam Samuels, said he's seen this happen over the 50 or so years he's been in the ranch business, but not to this extent. "I've seen it many times over the years," he said this morning, "three or maybe four at a time; never this many. This is not the first time, but I've never seen this many in one strike. Practically, the whole herd is laying in a pile." By midmorning, a backhoe was next to the cattle, digging a large hole. Stack said he was planning to bulldoze the carcasses into the hole and have them buried by the end of the day...News&Tribune