[FEL-L] Cattle truck crash on Louisiana interstate provides feast for big cats

[BigCatSimba at aol.com]

Cattle truck crash on Louisiana interstate provides feast for big cats


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SHREVEPORT, La. - Louisiana sheriff's deputies on horseback rounded up scores 
of heifers after a cattle truck overturned on an interstate overpass, closing 
the highway for hours and killing 23 of the yearlings.  
Most of the heifers were killed in the truck or on the interstate but some 
jumped off the bridge onto the highway below, authorities said. Some of the dead 
cows were later fed to big cats at an exotic animal shelter.  
"Some of them had to be put down and removed from the scene," Shreveport 
police Lt. Breck Bickham said.  
The Caddo Parish sheriff's mounted patrol set up stock trailers in the median 
of Interstate 220 and began corralling the 117 calves soon after the truck 
overturned about 11 p.m. local time Wednesday.  
The wreck happened when a number of cows shifted their weight, police said.  
Some of the cows wandered a couple of kilometres in either direction, 
resulting in police warning drivers in the area to watch out for stray cattle. Two 
cars were damaged by hitting heifers, Shreveport police spokeswoman Kacee 
Hargrave said.  
The highway was reopened about 11 a.m. Thursday, after all of the cattle were 
accounted for. The state transportation department dispatched 23 carcasses to 
a sanctuary for lions, tigers and other big cats.  
By early afternoon, Yogie and Friends Exotic Animal Sanctuary had hauled six 
of the donated carcasses - about 135 kilograms each - into pens for the larger 
animals at the shelter, executive director Jennie Senier said.  
The shelter has 20 cats, including seven tigers, six lions and a bobcat.  
It was a windfall for the sanctuary, which lost more than 18 tonnes of meat 
when a freezer failed earlier this fall and is also a more natural food for the 
cats, Senier said.  
"They got the fur, they got the bones," Senier said.  
_http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2007/11/15/4659505-ap.html_ 
(http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2007/11/15/4659505-ap.html) 



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