A herd of cattle reportedly trampled the 85-year-old man as he hiked together with his spouse and canine.
Cow alongside Austrian path (Picture: Christoph Hetzmannseder / Second by way of Getty)
Up to date September 3, 2025 12:11PM
On Sunday, an 85-year-old man died following an animal assault he suffered whereas out on a hike together with his spouse and his canine within the Austrian province of Styria. The unsuspecting killer: cows.
Markus Lamb, an area police spokesman, advised AFP {that a} herd of 9 cows, together with three calves, charged the social gathering. Hikers within the space have been capable of administer first support after the assault earlier than the couple was taken to a Salzburg hospital. The person died of his accidents earlier than he was capable of obtain surgical procedure.
Though cows would possibly look like an unlikely killer, this isn’t the primary time {that a} hiker has misplaced their life in a cow assault. In 2024, a girl who was mountaineering along with her canine in Austria was attacked and killed by a herd of cattle.
In 2019, Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, introduced that the province could be set up a brand new, legally-binding code of conduct for individuals who go to the mountains within the space. The code requires hikers to maintain a distance from cattle and to hike with their canines on a leash, (until attacked, by which case canines must be launched).
The code of conduct was established after a 2014 bovine incident claimed the lifetime of a German vacationer in Tyrol, which resulted in a farmer paying €490,000 to the vacationer’s household and enraging different farmers within the area.
Whereas cattle have made information headlines many occasions in Austria’s mountainous areas, the U.S. has seen its justifiable share of cow assaults, too. In the summertime of 2023, Boulder County Parks & Open House issued a warning in Colorado after cows attacked two completely different runners on native trails. In a single incident, a cow headbutted the runner, shocking them however leaving them unhurt. In a second incident, cattle circled a jogger earlier than attacking her and touchdown her within the hospital.
That very same 12 months, quite a lot of Continental Divide Path hikers reported feral cow encounters in Gila Nationwide Forest, New Mexico. In response, the Forest Service introduced that it might “lethally take away” the feral cattle, which had exhibited aggressive habits in direction of people up to now. Whereas the Heart for Organic Range tried to thwart deadly motion towards the cows, a federal decide upheld the choice to permit Forest Service personnel to dispatch the animals earlier this 12 months.
And in 2020, an aged couple was airlifted in California after a cow chased them in Solano County Park whereas they have been mountaineering. Rescuers sounded a helicopter-mounted alarm to chase the cows away earlier than extracting the couple.
Some analysis has indicated that cows are extra deadly than bears and sharks mixed. There are solely roughly two to a few deadly grizzly assaults in North America yearly. Comparatively, cows—that are way more widespread—kill 20 to 22 People yearly. Whereas cattle are usually docile, they’ll cost, kick, or trample people once they really feel threatened or they’re defending calves.
One of the simplest ways to guard your self from cows whereas mountaineering is to offer them a large berth, making certain that you just by no means cross between a calf and its mom. Stay watchful for threatening habits. Aggressive indicators can embrace reducing the top, snorting, pawing the bottom and rounding the shoulders.
