Threatened by cows In The Cotswolds

by Anon

Walking in the Cotswolds at dusk along a footpath through a gated field a group of 15 or so black adult cows crowded round quite quickly and decisively. I was near the field edge so when one started to run I thought it best to bail out and crossed the barbed wire and dry stone wall to the next field with all of the herd standing against the wall watching. Who knows how this would have panned out had I walked quietly on pretending confidence which has always seen me through before. I have walked alone for years among adult cows sometimes showing interest or following but I have never felt threatened before. This incident has made me completely rethink! Reading other comments it might be that the situation was worse because of the poor light, given the animals reported poor vision. Just a heads up to fellow walkers!

“It's happened once or twice in the past to the two of us. We are quite tuned in to the best times to avoid going through some fields- i.e when there are young animals with mothers, however we have definitely reduced our walking routes after one instance when we were walking round the edge of a field with some young black bullocks munching happily in the middle of it. One of the more testosterone laden decided he was up for it and started to slowly follows us - the others grouped behind him. When they got to a distance of about 6 yards away and bearing in mind there were by now about 12 of these chaps... we turned round to face them. The leader started pawing the ground and snorting... we were then very politely but firmly marched around the edge of the walled field until we found somewhere to scramble out. We have come across a few other instances of aggressive/strange behavior in bovines....”

Chris Carr, Northumberland

“The same thing happened to me and a friend walking in North Wales. The cows were lying down as we entered the field about 200 yards away. Very soon the stood up and walked towards us . We were about 75 yards from the field gate when they started to run fast towards us, We waved our arms when they were very close to us and much to our amazement they turned 90 degrees and 3 cows jumped a normal height barbed wire fence into the adjoining field. We couldn't believe what we had just seen.”

Keith Evans, Wirral

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