Hiker dies in cow herd charge in Austrian Alps

alyth@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 61 points –
Hiker dies in cow herd charge in Austrian Alps
freemalaysiatoday.com

A hiker in the Austrian Alps died when a herd of cows charged her, while her two daughters survived with injuries [...]. The woman was on a hike with her two daughters [...] and two small dogs yesterday [...] in the Salzburg region when the cow herd charged [...]. “It is still not clear what happened,” a police spokesman [said].

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This news comes just two days after @TheBananaKing@lemmy.world asked Is it generally safe to walk through a field of cows? on !nostupidquestions@lemmy.world. To cite a response from the thread:

Usually it’s pretty safe except when there are calves on the field. It happens every year that some tourists (especially with dogs) go through a field with calves and their mothers and someone gets injured. - @SRo@lemmy.dbzer0.com

This comment is backed up by a statement from the linked article:

Emergency service personnel cited by Austrian media warned of the danger of dogs getting near cows. “Cows have a very strongly developed maternal instinct and defend their calves,” said an emergency service source cited by news agency APA.

I always learned to never walk between a bear mama and her cub, or a cow and her calf

Asking for trouble

Cows and bears. Both put the wumpus on you if your dog irritates or frightens them, especially if they have their kids still with them.

How much does a cow herd charge? Is it really that expensive that it would cause somebody to die?

The list price was pretty low but they really milked her for fees during checkout.

I was feeling kinda sad about the whole thing then I saw the part about the two small dogs. I'm guessing they weren't on a lead.

"Ha! Look at Gretchen play with the little Kuh. So nett! Oh...mama looks mad...ach Scheiße!"

How does an Austrian-alps-cows-charge-hiker story end up in the Free Malaysia Today?

I have no idea. I saw the news article in a newspaper based in Luxembourg first, but it was in French. So I searched for an English version to share and found this one from Malaysia.