Perhaps like me you’ve been reading some alarming stuff about walking among cows. The Sunday Times mag a couple of weeks back had a cover article titled ‘Natural Born Killers’ and inside the shout line was, ‘Ramblers beware: there’s a new killer in the countryside.’ The article was by Sian Boyle.
Now, as you know, I’m all for asserting that walking is not an entirely safe and cozy activity, that there are risks and dangers, and that’s all part of the appeal, but of the various things I worry about while walking, until now cows haven't been one of them.
The deal is that whereas you and I might think cows are benign, indeed bovine, creatures, apparently they kill and injure a significant number of walkers in Britain. According to the Health and Safety Executive, 9 members of the public were killed between 2017 and 2022, along with 23 farm workers, and in the years 2020/1 31 people received cow-related ‘non-fatal injuries’. This doesn’t seem a huge number, but it’s far more than most of us would have imagined, and according to Sian Boyle ‘Campaigners believe this doesn’t tell the whole story.’ There's a website (see below) called killercows.co.uk which reports and publicizes incidents.
Some of these incidents involve dog walkers, where the hound comes between a cow and her calf, and sometimes it’s people who don’t understand the basic common sense rules of walking through fields, but it still seems a lot of deaths and injuries. That Times article does admit 'there’s something comical about the idea of a herd of cows on the rampage,’ but I do have a friend of a friend who was out walking and had a cow sit on him. I don't know the precise details but I gather he’s never been the same since.
So I’ve been reviewing my own walking practice regarding cows and although I’ve never had any trouble, I’m always wary and I try not to bother them.
A commenter on Killer Cows advises, ‘Make a lot of noise, clap your hands and charge at them – but don’t get too close to them when you do i.e. always stay out of kicking range. They always stop in their tracks and if you keep it up they will stay away from you while you get out of their way.’ I hope I won’t have to put that to the test. A letter in the Times suggested sticking your fingers up the cow's nostrils.
I suppose you could avoid trouble by being an urban flaneur rather than a country rambler, but avoiding the countryside altogether seems a bit defeatist.
The pics scattered throughout this post were taken in my own wanderings among cows. I never felt scared, but maybe I should have.
This last pictures shows a bull seen while it and I were walking in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It looks, and indeed proved to be, harmless, but I know that doesn’t prove anything.
The online group/blog Killer Cows can be found here at https://killercows.co.uk
