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Rescuers in Moriches are now using hay, corn and other treats to lure a runaway bull into a portable corral, in order to safely capture the beast that has been on the run for more than two days.
Using livestock panels, rescue groups erected the pen Thursday. The new effort comes after an unsuccessful attempt of employing a menstruating cow named Norma Jean to entice the bull from its hiding place in a wooded area near the farm he escaped slaughter from on Tuesday.
“We have a rope ready to pull the gate closed if he goes into the corral,” John Di Leonardo, president of Long Island Orchestrating for Nature, told GreaterMoriches. “We have a camera set up in there also, so we can monitor from afar whether he’s gone into the corral.”
Di Leonardo noted that while there have been no sightings of the bull over at least the last 24 hours, trackers have seen his feces and hoof prints.
“He’s in an area with plenty of water and high grass, so he’s not going to starve,” Di Leonardo said. “If he had left the area, I’m sure we would have heard about it from the neighborhoods.”
Barney – a nickname given to the bull because the barn he escaped from is in Barnes Road – is not in the business of trusting humans right now, Di Leonardo said. And who can blame the bull, he added.
“We have to get him to trust humans again,” Di Leonardo said. “He is behaving like any other animal would in his situation. He just wants to live.”
Barney was first reported on the loose by police shortly after 8 a.m. on Tuesday. He had escaped from a farm where he was slated to be sacrificed as part of a religious holiday ceremony.
Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in New Jersey has agreed and has been given permission from the animal’s owner to take in the bull, once he is safely captured.
“Barney has earned a pardon for a crime he never committed,” Di Leonardo said.
Above photo: Facebook / The Shirley Drive In
