The great cow rescue of 2018
Hundreds of cows were saved from drowning after a Manawatu¯ community pulled together to rescue them.
Pohangina Valley farmer Shane Carroll said his heart sank as he watched 200 of his cows get washed down a swollen river during the wild weather that lashed the region earlier this month.
‘‘One old girl dived into the river, and 250 of the silly things followed her in,’’ said Carroll.
However, his community quickly rallied behind him to conduct a region-wide search that eventually found almost all of the missing cattle.
As the Pohangina River filled in the heavy rain, Carroll and a farmhand set out to move the 300 cattle they were grazing near the riverbank to higher ground.
‘‘But the river came up so fast we couldn’t get there as quickly as we needed to.’’
However, they were coming in from different directions, and the high waters cut the farmhand off from the herd.
Carroll spent nearly two hours in water up to his waist, herding the cattle towards safer pastures on his own, until disaster struck.
Carroll, buffeted by the current and cattle, desperately fought to drive the animals back onto the riverbank. ‘‘They nearly took me with them, but I managed to turn about 90 cows around.’’
But the rest were swept away. Out of the 430 cows Carroll owned, more than 200 were gone. Inland Revenue’s 2018 national average market values of specified livestock determination report valued a mixedage herd of cows at around $1500 per head on average. So Carroll faced a potential $300,000 loss.
Carroll said offer after offer of help came in from the community, and it all kicked up a notch when Fonterra Manawatu¯ area manager Max Johnston called in the cavalry.
Johnston rang almost every farmer on the banks of the Manawatu¯ and Pohongina rivers to recruit them in the search.
And Barry Moar, who runs a local deer-recovery business, lent Carroll a pilot and a helicopter.
Between the searching farmers and two flights over the region, Carroll managed to find most of the missing cows, leaving 40 dead or missing.
‘‘Some of them were washed up to 20 kilometres downriver, and wherever their feet hit the ground, they just got out and started wandering around.’’
The cows were scattered along the banks of the Manawatu¯ River – and one was found ambling down the road near Ashhurst, nearly 30km from home.
Another handful, in ones and twos, had somehow managed to get themselves stuck deep in the blackberry brambles on a nearby reserve.
Carroll and his staff spent days hacking paths through dense, 10-foot-tall bramble patches to get them out.
And even days later the occasional cow was popping up.