Running of the Bulls… in Your Backyard!
The East Coast briefly resembled the Wild West on Sunday afternoon when eight bulls escaped a rodeo pen in a Massachusetts mall parking lot, miraculously injuring none – but one remains on the lam.
A shocking video captures the moment a herd of bulls burst through fencing from a rodeo at the Emerald Square Mall. They charged through the crowded parking lot, colliding with a tent before heading towards U.S. Highway 1. The wild animals then veered into the woods, where the first of the eight escapees was quickly apprehended.
“Community members should exercise extreme caution and not approach any bulls,” warned the North Attleboro Fire Department in a message issued to the community on Sunday.
North Attleboro Fire and Police, along with Massachusetts Environmental Police, searched for the rest of the herd with the assistance of New England Rodeo members in Norton and participants from the rodeo at the mall. The herd trekked through the woods and towards residential areas of Attleboro, surprising some locals with an unexpected – and unwelcome – visit to their yards.
Six bulls ended up trapped behind a fence at a home in Attleboro around 4:30 p.m. They were all herded into a trailer without incident, leaving just one bull at large.
“As soon as I stepped out and I looked out there, I said those aren’t horses, those are literally bulls and ‘oh my god’,” Attleboro resident Chris Mooney told NBC Connecticut. “Two of them were laying down and another was budging the fence trying to get out, and the other ones were just sitting there.”
While some residents were understandably shaken by the encounter, others expressed sympathy for the cattle’s plight but were relieved to see them removed from their neighborhoods without harm.
“At first I just felt bad for the bulls. I’m like – they escaped for a reason,” Gee Sounthonevat, a neighbor of the homeowner who inadvertently captured six of the bulls, told NBC Connecticut.
First responders are still searching for the lone missing bull. The Festival Rodeo, a single-day event, was shut down, and the cause of the breakout is under investigation.