Searchers trying new tactic to lure escaped bull: Grain - Newsday

There's been search teams on foot and on horseback, helicopters, drones, thermal cameras. Searchers have even sent out a cow in heat.

Nothing, so far, has helped anyone locate the 1,500-pound bull that escaped from Moriches farmland Tuesday. Now on Thursday morning, a full 48 hours since that bull made his dash to freedom, exasperated searchers are wondering what it's going to take to find him, capture him and relocate him to the safe haven of an animal rescue sanctuary.

Frankie Floridia of Strong Island Animal Rescue said the game plan Thursday will be to set up a huge horse pen near the site where the bull was last seen in the Mastic-Shirley area, and load the pen with grain in an attempt to lure the bull.

"Grain to a bull would be like dessert, a treat, like ice cream to you or me," Floridia said. "We're hoping that works."

For two days Suffolk County police officers, a search team with Floridia and Strong Island and another team attached to John DiLeonardo and his group, Long Island Orchestrating for Nature (LION), have wandered dense underbrush in the Mastic-Shirley area in search of the bull, described by Floridia as being young, fast and with a dark coat that has blended into his surroundings, especially at night.

The bull was first reported missing after having broken through a farm fence on Barnes Road around 8:20 a.m. Tuesday, police said.

He was later sighted in open fields, where local residents and police took photos of him, but then wandered off into the wilderness and disappeared.

Rescuers said they hope to have the bull moved to a sanctuary to live out his days.

That is, if they can find him.

"We've tried luring him with a cow, with horses," Floridia said. "I'm out here with a tranq [tranquilizer] gun, looking for him, and I'm thinking, 'I'm hunting cows in an Indiana Jones movie.' It's just frustrating. The longer it goes you wonder what happens."

Floridia said the dense underbrush, with pine barrens and other close-growing vegetation, has been a huge hindrance to the search.

"In some areas the weeds are higher than my head," he said. "There's divots and rivers and marsh. You're walking fine one second, the next you've lost a shoe. It's amazing and tough-going and it's made it all harder."

He said his worst fear, because of the color of his coat, is that searchers don't locate the bull before nightfall. Though Floridia won't give an exact location of the search, for fear of attracting onlookers, he said it's within a half-mile "in all directions" of populated areas and not far from Sunrise Highway.

"I'm not afraid of him being aggressive to humans," Floridia said. "He doesn't have horns, he's not an aggressive animal. I think he's going to see people and he's going to run away. I'm just afraid, with the color of his coat, he's going to wander into a road in the dark and some driver won't see him."

Floridia said he's also afraid the young bull will find a spot in the dense underbrush and will opt to stay there, out of reach to his pursuers.

Said Floridia, "He's just at a point where he just wants to eat, drink and hang out . . . He finds a place where he's comfortable? We might not see him 'til October."

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”

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