Did you hear the one in Howard County this week about the four cows that broke out of their confines? It took a police tactical response team, several animal control officers, state livestock experts and two helicopters equipped with heat-sensing devices to track down the escapees. Two of the heifers were shot dead, but two others escaped into the woods and haven't been seen since.
It would all be that much more laughable it it weren't so scandalously true. Let us state unequivocally from the beginning that we are rooting 100 percent for the surviving cows in this bizarre story. Pitted unfairly against overzealous officials, the two young bovines are hiding out, we hope, deep in the woods and out of harm's way.
Police and others are justifying their SWAT-team posse on the grounds that the cows had been spotted crossing a county roadway and posed a potential danger to motorists. How much more dangerous, however, are four cows when compared with the countless number of deers that dart onto roadways? And before anyone points to the fact that deer-hunting is a legal sport, no one could seriously argue that this cow hunt equates with thinning out deer populations.