Ribs spared!
Runaway Qns. bovine saved by animal lover
SANCTUARY!
The cow that made a mad, brief dash to freedom from a Queens slaughterhouse on Thursday is now on his way to a farm sanctuary in rural New Jersey, thanks to a dedicated animal rights activist.
Mike Stura waited all night outside the Jamaica market with a truck and trailer to bargain for the brave bovine after reading about his escape, capture and apparent destiny to be butchered Friday.
"I was able to get the owner (of Archer Halal Live Poultry) on the phone right away and at first he was pretty receptive," said Stura, 49, who lives in Pompton Lakes, N.J.
“But he said the animal was promised to a family that had some big event coming up and he would call them,” Stura said.
“I impressed upon him several times that 38 billion cattle go to the food industry,” added Stura, a truck driver and mechanic. “It’s nice if one lives once in a while.”
Stura slept in his truck and spoke to workers when they arrived at the market on Archer Ave. in the early morning.
He was able to convince the
owner — weary from protesters and the media spotlight — to give him the animal.
“Say hello to Freddie. . . On our way to the vet to get checked out,” Stura posted, along with a photo of the freed cow, on the Facebook page of Skylands Animal Sanctuary, the 230-acre refuge he created last year.
Stura named the cow Freddie after Freddie Mercury, the late lead singer from the legendary rock band Queen.
Once he clears a medical exam from a veterinarian and a possible stay in quarantine, Freddie will join 18 other cows as well as goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys and other animals on the sprawling sanctuary in Sussex County.
The cow broke free as it was being brought to the market on Thursday morning.
It roamed the streets of downtown Jamaica for almost an hour before cops cornered it in a parking garage.
The brown-and-white beast was the second animal to escape slaughter this week — a goat ran away from a different Bronx slaughterhouse Tuesday.
The cops who corralled the goat ended up buying him from the slaughterhouse and sending him to a Long Island petting zoo.