The bull has been captured, and upon further inspection, it is not a bull at all.
The animal, now revealed to be female, was caught at about 3:30 p.m. Monday after it wandered into a pen built to ensnare it. For months it has created a stir – and even some traffic jams – at the intersection of I-75 and I-675 near the border of Henry and Clayton counties.
“We corralled it, then tranquilized it,” said Jill Goldberg, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.
The bovine, which now has a Twitter account under the moniker Kevin the Cow, “got upset” after being tranquilized and had to be left alone for a while before it was safe to approach, Goldberg said. The the beast was then loaded on to a trailer.
“It took a while to drug up,” Goldberg said.
The cow had been wandering for about six months among acres of woodlands located at the confluence of the major highways.
In addition to startling motorists, it caused a bureaucratic ruckus between county and state officials, who disagreed for months on a plan to capture it. Henry County officials wanted to shut down traffic so the beast could be safely tranquilized without panicking and rushing into traffic.
But DOT officials refused to shut down two busy interstates for an operation that could last hours.
Clayton County, for its part, bowed out of the entire matter.
In the meantime, the cow became a popular topic of conversation among drivers who were shocked to see it — brown and white, with a formidable set of horns — loitering near a stretch of metro Atlanta highway. It spurred numerous calls to 911 from motorists concerned that it might cause trouble on the highway.
On Twitter, it entertained followers with playful tweets such as, “I’m on the lamb in suburban Atlanta. Any tips?”
Last week, inquiries by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution prompted a spate of phone calls between DOT and Henry officials, who came to a compromise. DOT, which has a maintenance facility near the cow’s stomping grounds, built the pen and filled it with sweet feed, water and salt.
It remains unclear where the bovine will end up, but Goldberg promised: “It is on its way to somewhere better.”
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