RIP, The Littleton Bull
A better look at the runaway bull… Who is now becoming quite popular on Twitter 😂 @LittletonBull 📸: Michelle Clements #WBZ pic.twitter.com/Fbb8Ez5lwb
— Anna Meiler (@AnnaMeiler) August 17, 2017
Well, this isn’t how we all hoped this would end. Tragically, the Littleton Bull’s six-day journey, which began when he escaped a livestock auction on Tuesday, came to an end on Sunday night when police say they had to put the big guy down.
The Littleton Police Department says it received a report of a bull sighting at around 5:30 p.m. near a road. Afraid it might run out into traffic, police say, they shot it twice. Then the bull’s owner, who purchased it at the auction on Tuesday, arrived and delivered the final shot, killing the animal.
“This decision did not come lightly,” Littleton Police Chief Matthew J. King says in a statement. “Littleton Police and the bull’s owner acted out of concern for people in the neighborhood and drivers in the area.”
The Globe identified the bull’s owner as Terry Den Besten, of Raynham. And according to the paper, Den Besten is not pleased. He says he had no choice but to put the bull down because it had been wounded by gunfire, and he wishes police had tranquilized, rather than killed, his bull. He criticized authorities who he says told him they are barred from using tranquilizers on domestic animals. “This liberal state won’t allow it,” he says. He tells the Lowell Sun, that he’s “as mad as I’ve ever been in my life.”
Regardless, the Littleton Bull, whose grand escape had been watched closely over the past several days and inspired a popular tribute account on Twitter (and an offer of sanctuary from PETA), is no more.
Odes to the beast have been pouring in.
They say the good ones die young. @LittletonBull, we hardly knew ye. Run free!
— Tom Zuppa (@tomzuppa) August 21, 2017
@LittletonBull RIP sweet boy…..
— Linda Peters (@LindaPe35311025) August 21, 2017
Wish you’d had a happier end. May the lady cows on the afterlife be attractive and plentiful.#RIP https://t.co/eFJzC8hVSB
— Natick Bobcat (@NatickBobCat) August 21, 2017
