P.E.I. farmer stunned as 10 cows killed by lightning

Storm was so powerful that the cattle were tossed over and onto fence in pasture

VERNON BRIDGE, P.E.I.— Ten cows have been killed by a lightning strike so powerful it appears to have tossed some of the animals over a fence.

Veteran farmer Blair Henry said the grim discovery of six cows and four calves was difficult — he thought fondly of the animals he considered pets, having raised some of them for the last decade.

“It was hard to believe that lightning could kill that many,” he said from his farm Friday. Henry had wandered out to the field in Vernon Bridge after he spotted an unusual cluster of his beef cattle off on its own sometime after 6 a.m. last Saturday.

He then saw the bodies laying near a fence on his almost 30-hectare farm, and knew instantly that a powerful lightning storm that raged through the night had struck the animals down.

He said his 65 cattle were out in the pasture through the night, but could have gone inside the barn. Henry said it was so potent it appears to have tossed some of the animals over and on top of the fence. He said it looked like “a war zone.”

He says some of the surviving cattle were visibly affected by the deaths, with some crying and repeatedly searching the area for their missing parents or babies. He said they were upset for about three days.

“They would go to where the dead ones were and bawl and look around and then they’d come back up in the fields and then an hour or two later, they’d all run back down there again and do the same thing again,” he said. “We know every one of them and gave some of them names.”

Henry, who has lost about six cattle to lightning over the 50 years he’s been farming, estimates the loss of the animals will cost about $15,000.