On the 5th November, 2022, I was walking on my own along a public footpath near Watermills Wood in Staffordshire. I could see around 15-20 young cows in the field, but the footpath led straight up the edge of the field to a farmhouse only about 200 metres away. It was raining heavily.
The cows were initially about 10 metres away from the stile and path. They were looking at me, but also eating the grass. They looked at me for longer than was typical, so I kept an eye on them. There was a bank of trees to the side of the path. I thought the cows would probably not be too bothered by me and, if needed, I could go up the steep bank and take cover behind the trees.
It was just as well that I planned my escape.
Only about 10 metres into the field (away from the cows), several of them started running towards me. This was not just curiosity! The whole herd joined in.
I ran up the bank behind some trees – but around 4 cows followed me up there, still running…
Because I couldn’t climb over the fence at this point, due to thick branches from trees on the other side, I ran back to the stile and threw myself over it. A couple of the cows ran right up to the stile and were pushing their heads over it.
I bent back my thumb nail and bruised my leg on the stile, but am otherwise unscathed. It was surreal. I’ve walked through many fields of cattle before without a problem. If I hadn’t run away, they would have trampled me, for sure. At times, they were only about a metre away and their mooing and head movements after I jumped over the style was not playful but distinctly agressive.
Before this incident and my subsequent googling I was unaware of the advice to not run in these situations. While I appreciate that my response possibly worsened the cows behaviour, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have stopped running in this instance and I’d have been trampled. I’m an experienced walker in the UK and beyond, I think that an older or less fit individual might have been severely injured in the same circumstances.
Report reference: 269,152,382
Cattle Safety 