There are already a plethora of things drivers have to worry about on a highway, like getting cut off because the other driver was staring at their phone or ending up in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Now, we have to add driving into a Wild West reenactment to the list. Last Sunday, the Michigan State Police helped turn a stretch of interstate highway into an open plain for wranglers to capture an escaped steer.
According to the Associated Press, a steer named Lester escaped from a ranch several weeks ago. Lester and four other cows were relocated there after escaping from pens at an animal rescue facility. Lester reemerged last weekend on Interstate 75 in Holly, Michigan, roughly 57 miles northwest of Detroit.
State troopers were requested to control traffic along I-75, where Lester was spotted as a team of wranglers showed up in force to bring the steer in. The agency’s Twitter account said the posse was “comparable to the cast of Yellowstone.” The dashcam footage from the state police shows Lester’s capture. Wranglers attempted to corral the steer in a wooded area near the highway with two ATVs and a rider on horseback. Then, Lester made a break for it, sprinting onto the roadway.
The rider on horseback pursued Lester up the middle of the Interstate as traffic whizzed past in the left lane, all while being shadowed by a police cruiser. The wrangler lassoed the steer, but the ordeal was over yet. Lester still fought to escape, scrambling to the median and hopping over the barrier to the opposite lane. Though, Lester was quickly brought down. The police stated on Twitter, “the bovine was not charged and is back in the pasture with a story to tell all the other livestock.”
Surely, there had to be a more efficient way to stop Lester than lassoing him after a lengthy pursuit by a team of wranglers. Couldn’t the steer just been shot with a tranquilizer, and the story could have ended quickly before it spilled out onto an active highway?