Brian Krueger was enjoying a peaceful lunch at the Cornerstone Cafe in Hyde Park when he noticed an unusual number of police officers wandering the streets. Soon, a man burst in: “There’s cattle running all over!”
Krueger went to see for himself. He found himself face to face with a bull and spotted four or five other cattle. “The bull was pissed,” he says. “I’m a country kid, so I know enough when they’re scared. The bull wasn’t anything to mess with.”
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He stayed back and snapped a few photos. He watched as police and animal control corralled the bull near an apartment building and zip-tied its enclosure. Then Krueger headed back to work.
In the meantime, police continued chasing the other cattle.
The call had gone out close to 1 p.m.: animal at large at the corner of St. Louis Ave. and N. Grand Blvd.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, six cattle escaped from an unsecured door at a slaughterhouse, Star Packing Co., and began running through North City’s streets.
At 4 p.m., police tweeted that they had successfully caught one cow.
UPDATE:
The live chase footage from KMOV is no longer available. All six cows have been safely captured. One GoFundMe campaign successfully secured safe housing at a family farm for one of the cows. After raising more than $10,000, another GoFundMe campaign says it’s seeking to place the six escaped cows into a sanctuary together—and is still working to achieve that goal.
The GoFundMe campaigner wrote,
As it currently stands the cows have all been sold for profit by the slaughterhouse to individual farms and “sanctuaries”. The money we’re raising here is in to way shape or form tied to that though. Our goal at this point is to still place Chico and the other 5 cows in a sanctuary together. Things are still very fluid at this point, but continued donations are in the best interest of the animals as the money raised here is being used strictly to go towards their care and to ensure they live out their lives in the way we’re envisioning them too. At this point we have linked up with Kelly Manno (who you may have seen on the news) who’s running a campaign and has a home in place for Chico individually.
If we’re unable to get all 6 cows placed together, our funds will go directly towards whichever singular non for profit sanctuary we can get these animals to. We’re getting great media coverage so at this point I’m confident in being able to place the cows somewhere we can trust.
Keep up the good work, Adam
Editor’s note: We updated this post to include additional photos of the escaped bull and clarify the details of its capture.
