Excepting their wild ancestors like the yak and the buffalo, there are indeed WILD COWS. As I am referring to the previously domesticated variety, we must call them "feral" cows, which suits the easily amused sector of my brain just fine. It allows me to picture these large creatures skittish and lumbering, darting around the back of a city night club just as I am leaving, causing me to recalculate my adult beverage intake. Tiny mooing sounds issue from behind the dumpster as I step into the dark alley to investigate. As I round the corner, I discover a mama cow nursing her litter of little black and white cowlets, watching me wearily for any false move. I speak to her in a soothing tone, but all of a sudden two bulls run out of the shadows, nearly trampling me as they rumble past me and into the night. They will soon join the cats, possums and raccoons in their nightly urban raids, appearing suddenly in headlights everywhere and coming soon to a dumpster near you. Maybe I didn't need that last drink.
In reality, these feral herds are known to wander the countryside, far away from the farms on which they were born, reproducing in the wild and becoming generationally removed from their conservative bovine roots. Apparently the feral cows in Hawaii, have also mastered the art of becoming invisible:
In my search for information, I also discovered this little gem about a feral child raised by cows in Russia who could apparently only communicate by mooing when she was discovered. Unfortunately this is a case of child neglect, and not some Jungle Book story which substitutes cows for wolves and jovial bears, but I can only wonder if this little girl might help us to one day explore the surprisingly deep ruminations of the bovine brain; maybe these dumb-looking slow-moving creatures are Zen masters one step shy of Nirvana. Or maybe they're just alien spies.
I haven't read this book, but maybe they're onto something here.
There is of course, one other option to consider when wondering exactly what these free-roaming, cud-chewing, farm-fleeing, feral-child-friendly rebel bovines are up to. They are plotting to take over the world, and here is the proof: over 1000 cattle appear to have gone feral in the Fukushima radiation zone. Having finally reached a land liberated of factory farms, they may be organizing ranks while growing fangs and extra horns, consolidating their nuclear stockpiles and masticating on our ultimate undoing. Perhaps one day they will find you, sitting at an outdoor cafe, enjoying your organic, hormone-free, local and "humane" burger, throw a lasso around your neck as you are trying to swallow that last delicious, meaty bite, and relegate you to a job mining their endless sod flats on a diet of genetically engineered feed corn.
Just in case, we'd all better pray to Buddha that if cows are not the stupid, peaceful creatures we assume them to be, then in the case of attempted bovine world domination, the aliens take pity on our simple human souls and beam their spies back home.
(Alien Abduction Lamp by Lasse Klein)
If you prefer some less imaginative and more practical information on feral cows, check out these links:
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