No, this is not a supermarket tabloid story. A domestic cow has run away from home to live with a herd of European bison in Poland’s Bialowieza Forest (https://www.modernghana.com/news/830952/domesticated-cow-runs-off-to-live-with-bison-in-the-wild.html). She seems to be having a nice time of it, so far, but they want to get her back in the barn before she’s old enough to breed.
Funny things happen in this forest. The European bison, very much like our own bison, lives there now, but it used to be the last habitat of the gigantic aurochs–the wild cattle ancestral to our own, whose pictures adorn the walls of Ice Age caves. Back in the 18th century the farmers and woodsmen tried hard to save the aurochs, but it couldn’t be done.
So nobody wants this cow to get into the bisons’ gene pool, because there are not that many of them left.
But she seems in no hurry to go home!
That’s moderately astounding. One wonders where it will all lead.
A romance for the ages 🙂
And we read it first in…Modern Ghana?
At least it’s not a supermarket tabloid.
A documentarian should be able to have a lot of fun with this one. I had the cow doesn’t get named Betsy. How about calling her Beauty.
I don’t find this too surprising. Several years ago, a friend of my husband’s had a ranch on which he raised buffalos, and his cows would occasionally break out of their pasture and join the buffalos, and his neighbors’ animals would do likewise.
Like running off to join the circus?
Doesn’t it bring to mind visions of the cows kicking up their hooves in a freedom dance? 🙂
It’s actually quite a neat thought.