It was around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday when Mike Brown got a call from a neighbor concerning his cows.
Brown, the owner of Meadowbrook Farm on Stanley Hill Road in China, discovered someone had vandalized his gates earlier that morning and let his cows out of their holding pen. The cows then made their way out into the road.
“We’ve never had anything like this happen before,” Brown said Thursday afternoon as his cattle grazed back in their holding pen.
Brown’s farm has 45 black Angus cows, and some 18 of the adult females had gotten out, as well as 15 of the younger animals, most of them making their way onto the road. Brown, who works at Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow, said they probably had been out for about 15 minutes when he got there.
“No one got hurt, but there was a lot of potential,” he said.
Brown said it took about 45 minutes to an hour to get the cattle back into their pens. He said he isn’t sure why anyone would have released them. The farm is Animal Welfare Approved, Brown said, meaning it is audited and certified that it treats its animals humanely.
“I’m not sure what the purpose is,” he said. The incident at Brown’s farm was one of a handful of recent bovine-related acts of vandalism. A short distance away, on Maple Ridge Road, a padlock on a cattle fence at the McPherson Farm was broken. And two recent incidents in Clinton also have attracted attention.
The release of hundreds of cows from a large Clinton dairy farm drew a phone call from the FBI, which offered to assist in the investigation in case the incidents were the work of environmental extremists. Representatives from the FBI did not respond Thursday to calls seeking comment.
The Clinton police said they were contacted by the FBI Wednesday, following news reports about the incident at Misty Meadows Farm on Mckenney Road. Clinton police officer Karl Roy said Thursday he couldn’t remember the FBI offering to help in a Clinton investigation before, but he appreciated the offer.
“It’s very wise on their part,” Roy said. “Anytime you’re dealing with a crime, you want to have that information early.”
But Roy said Wednesday that the culprits in the cow releases were more likely to be juveniles than animal rights extremists.
“Quite often when you’re dealing with these extreme groups, they’ll want you to know they did it,” he said Wednesday.
There was no spray paint or propaganda left on the property, which Roy said would have been typical of an organization trying to bring attention to a cause.
“We’ve told them there’s nothing here in Clinton that suggests it’s terrorism,” Roy said.
Deputy Aaron Moody of the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office said there had been no new developments in the China investigation and that his agency had not been contacted by the FBI. He did say that a farm in Albion also might have been targeted, though he did not have details Thursday.
TWO INCIDENTS AT ONE FARM
At Misty Meadows Farm in Clinton, there were two separate incidents of cows being released in the same night last month, and one cow died of a broken neck when it fell into a drainage hole. The rest of the released animals were returned to their pens.
Roy said police think the culprits have knowledge of farm equipment. At Misty Meadows, a stainless steel cooling tank filled with milk had been shut off, but the tanks were turned back on before about $10,000 worth of milk spoiled. From there, the vandals went to nearby Wright Place Farm, but the damage there was much less significant. No cows were released or injured.
Brown’s theory is that it was “someone who cared a little bit” about animals. The gates to the interior of the farm had been opened but another gate that opened toward the road had been left alone, he said.
He said it could have been “someone concerned about animals used for food consumption.”
But Brown said if that was the case, the person probably didn’t know Meadowbrook is certified as humane.
“They all have names,” he said, gesturing to the cows behind him. One, standing behind him with a tag on its ear reading “309” is named May. The “09” in the tag means the cow came to the farm in 2009. “It’s not like we don’t care for them.”
While Clinton and the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office are exchanging information on the incidents, Roy does not think the one at Meadowbrook is connected to the events in Clinton. Roy said no other Clinton farms have been targeted and that police are investigating people of interest and a vehicle of interest in those incidents.
Matt Randall, the agricultural compliance supervisor at the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, said acts of vandalism at cattle and dairy farms are unusual, but they put both animals and humans at risk.
“The stress on humans and animals alike can be hard to measure,” Randall said. “Innocent motorists use these roads, and collisions can be detrimental and certainly fatal.”
Randall said that while some might consider these to be pranks, they can turn do real harm. He said the death of the cow in Clinton is a prime example.
“This is serious,” Randall said. “We would like to see the mystery solved.”
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