The cow was spotted near East 96th Street and Avenue L on Tuesday afternoon.
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The runaway animal was a small cow, a black calf that was only a few months old. It somehow escaped a vehicle just outside a slaughterhouse in Canarsie.
"The people from the slaughterhouse, they were trying to lasso it and get it into the truck, but she was feisty, she didn't want to go," said Vincent Fontana, owner of Original Pizza.
It took a few minutes for it to be rounded up again and placed back into that vehicle.
This took a lot of effort from people who happened to be on Avenue L working.
The guys seen on video in blue t-shirts work for Original Pizza on Avenue L. They recorded the video that captured the cow, loose and trotting down the streets. People could be seen running around trying to get the cow to stop.
Unfortunately, the young cow did go back to the slaughterhouse a few blocks away, but that pizza shop owner says she should be spared as cows often are after a public escape like this one.
"We immediately jumped in the truck and started heading towards Brooklyn," Mike Stura said.
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Stura runs the Skylands Animal Sanctuary, which is where many animals are living out their lives after being spared, following a dramatic escape like this one in the city. He called the slaughterhouse.
"They weren't very receptive, to be honest with you," he said. "That was the least receptive of any of these places I've ever dealt with."
If a tranquilizer dart had been used on the cow while it was running around, that might have helped it get a break. Once tranquilizer is used, which is what usually happens when the police get involved, the slaughterhouse has no use for the animal, at least not for a while, so it would be more inclined to let a sanctuary have it.
Stura says there's something about the one animal that fights to survive that people identify with.
"Even slaughterhouse workers over the years that have given me animals, much bigger animals than this one, and have taken a much bigger financial hit and have said to me that they're happy the animal came with me," Stura said. "They are happy to see one live. You know, even the people in the slaughterhouses."
The slaughterhouse didn't answer any questions about what happened to the calf or whether they would consider sparing her.
The animal sanctuary is hoping the folks at the slaughterhouse will change their mind and let the sanctuary take it.
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"Let the animal come with us," Stura said. "You know, pardon one of the 38 million cows that get killed in this country every year."
"I think she deserves it. I think she earned it," Fontana said.
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