By Pat Bywater
CUSSEWAGO TOWNSHIP — M.J. Huya Jr. had a pretty good idea there was something wrong with one of his 600-pound, black-and-white Holstein steers Tuesday morning when the animal wouldn’t leave the 63-acre pasture on West Road for a feeding.
Huya tried to approach the steer, but the animal kept running off.
So Wednesday morning Huya got a few people together. They worked patiently to coax the steer out of the pasture at about 7:30 a.m.
Huya was shocked when he saw what the trouble was.
The steer had a tipless arrow through the ridge on its back, right above its front shoulder. Near equal lengths of the arrow were sticking out on either side.
“On a deer it would have been a kill shot if it was about a foot lower,” Huya said.
The discovery sparked several actions
— a call to Meadville-based state police, medical treatment for the steer and a decision, just days before the start of rifle deer season, to post the farm’s entire 200 acres. This season will be the first in more than 40 years that the second-generation family farm will not be open to hunters.
By Wednesday afternoon, with the arrow removed and the wound treated, the steer appeared to be doing fine. Only time will tell if the treatment is successful in staving off infection and saving the family’s investment. The steer should bring $300 to $400 once slaughtered.
What remains are a host of unanswered questions.
Huya thinks that the cow was likely shot from West Road and that the incident was no accident. The animal was in a 63-acre pasture with no woods, and the archery hunting seasons ended Nov. 14.
“Times are getting tough,” Huya observed, speculating that someone may have shot the steer in an attempt to harvest its meat. He estimated that a person with the right tools and butchery skills would need about 15 minutes to chop the carcass into pieces that could be carried away by hand.
If that was the intention, the act was brazen. Huya noted that trucks come and go on West Road to and from the farm at all hours this time of year as the farm processes its and others’ harvest. In addition to about 35 steer, the farm has about 90 dairy cows and raises field crops.
Whether or not the arrow had a tip when it was shot at the steer is an open question. The arrow has a threaded end to accommodate different types of tips. When the steer was brought in from the pasture Wednesday, the arrow had no tip, but it is possible that the tip came loose and fell off sometime between the time the steer was shot and Wednesday morning.
“This is just wrong,” Huya said, recalling that there have never been any incidents as serious as this on the farm. “Things like this are reasons why more and more farmers are posting their land” to prohibit hunting and trespassing, he said.
Pat Bywater can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at pbywater@meadvilletribune.com.
