Monday, August 22, 2011

High-tech hunt continues for missing cow

A "cow whisperer," helicopters and infrared cameras: no effort is being spared to find Austrian runaway cow Yvonne, who escaped slaughter in May to seek refuge in a Bavarian forest. The cow has become a media star in Germany and Austria, having evaded capture for almost three months, with Germany's leading newspaper, Bild, putting up a 10,000-euro ($14,000) reward for her capture earlier this week.

But an Austrian animal sanctuary, which has offered to buy Yvonne to spare her another traumatic trip to the slaughterhouse, is resorting to more unusual means to find the timid animal. A "cow whisperer" has been communicating with Yvonne every day by telepathy, Britta Freitag from the Aiderbichl sanctuary near Salzburg said. The cow apparently understood she would not be harmed but remained too afraid to show herself following the distressing transfer from her Austrian farm to Bavaria, according to these telepathic conversations.


YouTube link.

Meanwhile, efforts to locate the bovine animal by helicopter and using infrared cameras had come to nought, although she was reportedly sighted twice on Thursday, before vanishing again into the wild. A tracker with experience in Africa has also been trying to find her trail. Last week, a bull named Ernst was brought in by the Aiderbichl people to lure Yvonne out of her trees with his voice. Her son Friesi has also been roped in to help, to no avail.

Yvonne hails from the southern Austrian province of Carinthia but was sold to a Bavarian farm where she was to be fatted up for slaughter before she escaped on May 24. German police even issued a permission to shoot her after she ran in front of a police car, citing her as a threat to traffic. The permission to shoot has now been postponed until August 26, according to the Aiderbichl sanctuary.

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