Two cows got loose and wandered onto Interstate 79 near Elkview, West Virginia, and a couple of Kanawha County deputies spent their morning herding them back off. The cows weren’t in any hurry. Lt. Ratliff and Deputy Burdette had to convince the pair that, as the sheriff’s office put it, “the interstate is not a pasture.”
It happened early on a Thursday morning. Two black Angus cows turned up in the southbound lanes of I-79 near the Elkview exit and decided to have a bit of a stroll. Traffic slowed to a crawl, and drivers were told to keep an eye out and use caution.
Neither deputy showed up in a cowboy hat. But they got the job done anyway, steering the cows off the highway and to a safer spot. The police were able to make sure they didn’t come to any harm. Unfortunately, no one had tracked down their owner just yet.
The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office joked that it was just another day at the office. And for some police agencies, this tends to be true when they have to regularly go after livestock and animals. But in this situation, the cows needed to be taken to safety so they didn’t get injured.
How Do Cows End Up on the Interstate?
Cattle are always getting loose, so they’re an animal you need eyes on. A gate gets left open, a fence goes down in a storm, or a determined cow finds a weak spot and pushes through – all of these things can happen.. Then once they’re out, they tend to wander toward whatever looks like food, and a grassy median or roadside fits the bill.
Rural West Virginia has an abundance of farmland sitting close to the highways, so a loose cow doesn’t have to travel far to cause a problem. Black Angus like these two are common in the area as well, so it wasn’t that strange of a sight. They’re also big, dark, and hard to spot before sunrise, especially in the dark, which makes them hazards on a busy interstate.
What Should You Do If You See Cattle in the Road?
If you come over a hill and find a cow standing in your lane, the first thing you should do is slow down. Give it some room and don’t honk or rev your engine. A startled cow can bolt in any direction, including toward your car. A cow can weigh well over 1,000 pounds, so if you hit one, there’s going to be plenty of danger involved.
The best move is to call it in and let the deputies handle it, the way these two did. They’re trained for it, and they have the numbers to block traffic and steer the animals safely. So leave the herding to the professionals, and be glad someone got these two off the road before rush hour really kicked in.