MARMORA – A Scottish Highland cow that was on the loose in Upper Township has been successfully captured and has been transported out of the county.
The owner of the cow, who spoke to the Herald on the condition of anonymity, said he was in contact with a livestock handler from North Jersey, who was able to coral the cow in the last few days and transport it out of the area.
The cow, whose name is “Penny,” due to the color of her hide when she was first acquired, was given the moniker “Mootilda.” The cow came to the attention of certain Upper Township residents in mid-summer, when the cow was spotted off Tuckahoe Road in the Marmora section of Upper Township. Anne Merrill, a retired schoolteacherliving in Marmora, said she first noticed an emaciated cow in the woods near her home in July. She said the cow was in an area where a housing developmentand a senior development were being built, as well as where Atlantic City Electric had been staging equipment related to an electrical upgrade project. Merrill said she noticed Mootilda sticking her head out on Tuckahoe Road, but whenever she would call animal enforcement the cow was gone when officers arrived.
Not that they are equipped to handle an animal of that size.
Merrill estimated the cow to be between 400 and 500 pounds when she first noticed her. Since she began feeding her Mootilda is probably about 800 pounds. A mature Scottish Highland cow can grow to about 1,100 pounds.
Merrill said she started running into the cow in the woods and under power linessometime in July. About that time, the area was in a stage of drought and a lot of the natural vegetation was not growing. She started putting water out for the cow, and eventually started buying food for the animal.
According to the owner, although he does not blame Merrill or others for feeding the cow, creating a regular food source might have contributed to the fact that Penny did not find her way back home.
The owner said Penny went missing in May and was in the woods around his house.
“I thought I could get it back, but it was making bigger and bigger circles away from the house,” he said. “We were trying to lure it back and thought it was coming back, but with the other person feeding it she wasn’t coming back.”
He said a food source is a strong motivation for a cow to go or stay somewhere. Merrill said the cow acted like a large puppy and would tend to follow her around – but always at a distance.
The owner also pointed to the construction work and the work on power lines as keeping the cow away. He said there were helicopters related to the power line work flying over his house, and he believes that noise contributed to the cow now coming back.
“That’s what kept pushing the cow further and further away,” he said.
All the while, Merrill was trying to do what she could to contain the cow.
“One of the questions that can come up is,how do you coax an 800-pound animal into doing what you want,” Merrill asked.
Merrill said she spoke to Beck Yank from Starfish Equine, who rescues horses. Merrill said Yank had a livestock trailer and portable corral fencing, but the cow did not cooperate with their plans to capture her. Merrill began to move the food closer and closer to her house, and actually got the cow inside the corral fencing a couple times. She said the first time the fencing was not anchored down and Penny put her head under the fencing and lifted it and walked out. They next moved the corral to a nice, grassy part of the yard and anchored it with T-posts. Another time, Merrill said, Yank tried to close the corral gate and Penny rushed the gate. Yank moved out of the way rather than go head-to-head with an 800-pound cow.
Merrill said she called Shore Animal Control, which is based in Upper Township, and someone came out and attempted to help her, but the group is not equipped to capture and transport large animals. Merrill reached out to two other agencies that could handle the animal, but they were unsuccessful at trapping the animal. All the while, she said, the owner never came forward.
“The right thing to do would have been to notify the authorities,” she said.
The owner said he placed at least 30 calls over several months trying to get help to recover Penny.
“I must have called the police 25 times, I called animal control several times, the game warden, Fish and Wildlife…I must have been in contact with people over 30 times,” he said.
He said at one point he had a conversation with the police who informed him that a cow had been struck by a vehicle, that the cow had wandered intothewoods and was presumed to be dead. The New Jersey State Police, which patrol Upper Township, did not immediately confirm this.However, Linda Gentile of Shore Animal Control said she had been told the cow was apparently involved in an accident.
At the same time, Merrill said she was worried about the cow, which had not been seen for a number of days. Some speculated that she was in heat and was seeking out a bull in the area. The owner said Penny had worked her way to another property were there were some cows, and that property owner tried to lure Penny onto the property, but she wouldn’t go. The owner said Penny was always leery of gates and being penned in, as the others who tried to trap her learned.
The owner said he had searched for Penny daily for months, and had sought the help of people with drones, and even reached out to a man in North Jersey who specializes in recovering cows. After being told the cow was probably dead and not to worry about it, he stopped looking for Penny until he saw her picture posted along with Merrill’s story. The owner said, Jan. 3, that Penny had been recovered and shipped out of the county.
Gentile said Shore Animal Control issued a summons to Penny’s owner last week, and that the police were doing an investigation for an abandoned animal. She said she has also been in touch with the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office. Gentile said her agency had only received a call this week regarding a missing cow, whereas she said her office was in constant communication with Merrill. Asked, Jan. 3, what would happen regarding the summons since the cow had been recovered and removed from the county, Gentile said it would be up to a judge to decide.
Thoughts? Questions? Contact the author at csouth@cmcherald.com or call 609-886-8600 ext. 128.
