The Fugitive Cows of Archer Road

You want blog content? I'll give you blog content. It's an old story: The rebels who refuse to be go along with the herd. The intrepid jailbreak. Life on the run, scaring the townsfolk and ducking the law. And finally, inevitably, the tragic end.

In this case, our heroes are a couple of native "cracker" cows (let's call them Thelma and Louise) in Gainesville, FL. They were pastured near I-75 on the outskirts of town, not too far from a lot of UF student apartments and the dense strip malls on Archer Road. In early December, they escaped from their pasture and wandered the area, eluding capture, for nearly a month. At one point, police actually chased the cows through an apartment complex:

Sweet, who lives at Stoneridge Apartments on SW 34th Street, said she heard police officers mooing over megaphones Thursday night, trying to coax the cattle out of the woods. That's when she looked outside and saw a light flashing on a cow.

"I realized they were going to kill this cow in front of me, so I just started screaming, 'Don't shoot the cow, don't shoot the cow,'" she said.

I was in Gainesville during their reign of terror, and let me tell you, the only thing better than headlines like "Cows run amok on Christmas Eve" is the sight of roadside emergency signs reading "Caution: Cattle in Area". (And thanks to Carol and Vann for driving me past the sign so I could take that picture!)

The cows were finally cornered and shot by police a few weeks ago. It's a shame, but frankly it's a very lucky thing that they didn't cause any traffic accidents. And they weren't a total loss: The owner collected the carcasses.

How surreal would "Butch and Sundance" have been if it had ended with the heroes being made into hamburger?