CLINTON, Maine — A cow broke its neck and died last week after vandals targeting two central Maine dairy farms opened pens and set loose part of the herd, among other damage done in the nighttime spree.
Police investigating the vandalism incidents at Misty Meadows Farm and the Wright Place Farm, both in Clinton, said Monday that they have identified people of interest, but have not yet brought charges against anyone. Clinton Police Chief Rusty Bell said he does not believe that the acts were committed by adults or by people who “had it in” for one or both of the farms.
“It could be chalked up to young people not realizing the consequences of their decisions,” he said. “I don’t know that they meant to kill a cow.”
A Facebook post about the vandalism spree from police last week was shared far and wide. One local dairy farm family member who serves on the Maine Dairy Promotion Board said that she had received calls about the trouble in Clinton, known as Maine’s Dairy Capital, from as far away as Washington state and Ontario, Canada.
“I’m disappointed that it happened, but I don’t think it’s a spotlight on something that’s plaguing us,” Jenni Tilton-Flood said. “My hope is that when those responsible are found and their guilt determined properly, the restitution is not just monetary. The restitution is trying to truly understand the consequence, having some way for them to understand the true value of what happened.”
Bell thinks the first location that was hit in the spree that happened late at night Tuesday, Nov. 29, or early in the morning Wednesday, Nov. 30, was Misty Meadows Farm. Employees who were finishing up and getting ready to go home noticed cows out of their pen, Bell said.
“The first time it was about 150 cows out. They put them all back in. It’s a lot of work,” he said. “Then they went to bed.”
But their sleep was interrupted when another employee coming in for work noticed an even bigger problem. More cows were out of their pens — this time, 500 of the 1,000-plus-pound Holsteins were wandering around the farm and Hill Road.
“They were everywhere,” Bell said.
One of the cows fell in a 4-foot-deep drainage hole, breaking her neck and dying almost instantly, he said.
“She did not suffer. It was pretty immediate,” the chief said.
The farmers and farmworkers were busy wrangling the herd for the rest of the night, and around 3 or 3:30 a.m. noticed more trouble on the farm. The cooling mechanism on the stainless steel milk tanks had been shut off, which — if it hadn’t been caught in time — could have ruined thousands of gallons of creamy milk with a value of about $10,000, Bell said. Then the farmworkers noticed that someone had stolen two headlights from a truck in the garage, meat from a freezer and a pellet or BB gun. They saw that someone also had shot out a window in a piece of farm machinery.
When workers arrived at work that same morning at The Wright Place Farm’s heifer farm, just a mile away from Misty Meadows Farm as the crow flies, they initially noticed only that four streetlights were out and it was unusually dark, according to owner Ray Wright.
“Then they heard what happened at Misty Meadows and looked closer,” Wright said.
At his farm, the vandalism seemed less like maliciousness and more like pranks, he said. Some machinery had been moved around to different locations and some candy had been stolen out of a refrigerator.
“I think it’s just kids that are a little bored,” Wright said. “I think the answer will come out one day. Time will tell. Everybody is keeping their eyes and ears open.”
Tilton-Flood, who is a member of the Flood Brothers Farm family, said that dairy farming is integral in Clinton, where the cows handily outnumber the people. Five family farms there, including the two targeted by the vandals, produce at least 13 percent of the state’s milk, and economic studies have shown that each cow can be worth $13,000 in its lifetime. Numbers like that help make the vandals’ decision to target the dairy farms particularly troubling, she said.
“Actions do have consequences,” she said. “I doubt that the people who did this understood them.”
When the 500 cows were out, she said, they were a danger to themselves, to the farmers trying to corral them and to drivers who might have been passing by when the cows were milling in the road. Police said that the cow that died was worth perhaps $2,500, but the value of that cow’s milk over its lifetime is much greater, Tilton-Flood said.
“We spend 24 hours, 365 days a year ensuring the cows’ quality of life, their comfort, their health, their contentedness,” she said. “It can be a task. When the cows are upset and disturbed, it can have severe consequences. These cows were unable to be milked on time, and immediately that affects production and farmers’ income.”
Tilton-Flood said that she understands the fact that 500 cows were let out of their pens last week has caused people to be more interested in Maine’s dairy farms than they usually are. She would like it if that interest leads to people wanting to take care of their local farms and farm animals more than they may do right now. The vandalism was unusual, she said. But ordinary acts — such as tossing a can of soda from the window of a car onto animal pasture land, or setting off fireworks — can affect the health and well-being of cows.
“Cows will eat pretty much anything they come across,” she said. “Crushed cans can cause cows to suffer, and fireworks are a huge concern for a lot of us.”
She said she knows that people in Clinton generally value their farmers.
“We have a really fabulous town. We have the best neighbors,” she said. “But if anything good is to come out of this it’s that farmers in this area know how much support there is for them. And that people who live here have a better understanding of their farmers.”