By Julie Carter
First I read the article. Then I let out a huge sigh. My mind raced from sarcastic thoughts to a despair that the world for the cowman is coming to this.
According to a Los Angeles Times story, the wilderness areas in California, specifically the Oakland –East Bay Parks in this story, are making the news because of “cow attacks.” Rated right up there with rattlesnake bites, mountain bike tumbles and twisted ankles, cow attacks are listed as a regular danger to hikers in the vast public parklands.
The public lands are leased for cattle grazing. Late summer calving is the norm there and momma cows with babies are protective. So along comes Jennie the Hiker who hikes right into the cow’s spot who is guarding her newborn and the next thing Jennie knows, she’s flying through the air, crash landing on a barb wire fence.
And so what’s new. That is what happens to anyone, Jennie the Hiker or Joe the Cowboy, if you get too close to momma cow with new baby. Try hiking next to a brown bear with a new cub and see how gentle she is with you.
I’m not without compassion for her plight. Really I’m not. What I am is very short in patience for people who expect unnatural things in a world they profess to be protecting nature itself.
The article goes on to say this guy who walked his dogs was chased by six different cows at different times. HELLLOOOO!! The dogs! Cows with new babies don’t much like dogs (to a cow—read that predators) and they don’t much care if Big Red is on a leash or not.
The very words used to describe the scenarios are as offensive to me as the attitudes themselves. Personal campaigns to eliminate cattle grazing come with descriptions of “the dangers and fearfulness of maternal bovines.”
Park officials contend the grazing is necessary for fire protection and maintaining grasslands. In public hearings four years ago, grazing was strongly supported by most the fire departments as well as other large public landholders, including the San Francisco Water Department which owns and grazes 40,000 acres of watershed.
Without grazing, selective burning and other methods of control are necessary to control accumulation of dry grasses. Of course the burning and resulting pollution are even less acceptable to the public. But whose thinking at this point?
All this aside, give me a cowhided break! I’ve lived around cows all my life. You bet a momma will eat toss you skyward if you make her feel threatened, especially with a new baby calf near by. But she would rather run off with the kid trailing behind her given the option.
Just this spring I went to investigate a report of twins born to one wild high headed very big crazy acting cow. She looked me over several times as I was snapping photos and trying to get a shot of both calves in the picture and her too. Not one of them was much interested in my photography. The calves were just hours old and she paced and pranced and danced until she had them both up and ready to go….and go they did.
I have to wonder just how often Jennie the Hiker types decide they are going to pet that oh so cute new born baby “calfie”--and then cry FOUL when nature acts natural.
Then the cattle business gets one more negative hit in the press from one more Nola Granola who just as easily could have been eaten by a mountain lion.
Anybody kicking the cougars out of the “public” parks yet?
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