Of Miles Rausch

Authorities chase cow through Madison

TweetThis could only hap­pen in Madison.

Author­i­ties were in pur­suit of a cow on the loose around the Wash­ing­ton School area in Madi­son just before noon today (Mon­day). Madi­son Police, Lake County’s Con­ser­va­tion offi­cer, and a Madi­son vet­eri­nar­ian tried to round up the agi­tated cow from the Wash­ing­ton School play­ground and front lawn start­ing after 11:00 this (Mon­day) morn­ing. Madi­son Police Chief Chuck Pul­ford says the cow came from the Madi­son Live­stock Auc­tion Barn, and made its way to the school area, where vet­eri­nar­ian Tom Heirigs of Twin Lakes Ani­mal Clinic tried to tran­quil­ize it. Pul­ford says they wanted to tran­quil­ize the ani­mal so that they would not need to shoot it – which would have been a last resort. After mak­ing it’s way north to near the Madi­son Mid­dle School, Pul­ford says the cow headed back south down Divi­sion Avenue and just before get­ting back to the Live­stock Barn, went back west again. He says Heirigs was able to get a lasso around the cow and get it tied to a tree finally near Saint John’s Lutheran Church on North Grant Avenue in Madi­son, where Live­stock Auc­tion staff were able to get it back to the Auc­tion Barn. The whole pur­suit took more than an hour, Pul­ford says, with offi­cers block­ing traf­fic along the way. He says Wash­ing­ton School stu­dents were kept inside dur­ing the entire inci­dent as well, and the mid­dle and high school were noti­fied when the cow was in their area as well. Pul­ford says safety is the num­ber one con­cern in an inci­dent like this.

Via KJAM News.