A 40-year-old hiker in the Austrian Alps died after being charged by a herd of cows, with her two daughters injured in the rare incident, police said Thursday.
Originally from the region, she was on an excursion on Wednesday on her birthday to the Gastein valley near Salzburg with two small dogs when the attack occurred.
On this occasion, rescuers once again alerted walkers to the dangers linked to the presence of dogs. “Cows, whose maternal instinct is very developed, defend their calves” if they perceive a threat, they insisted, quoted by the APA press agency.
The hiker died instantly, while her daughters, aged 20 and 23, were able to escape and called for help. They were taken by helicopter to hospital and could only be heard briefly by investigators. “The circumstances (of the tragedy) remain to be clarified,” a police spokesperson told AFP.
In 2017, an Austrian woman who was walking with a friend and dogs in Tyrol was killed in a similar incident. Three years earlier, in the same region, a 45-year-old German vacationer who was walking with her dog was trampled to death by a herd.
The event aroused great emotion in Austria and concern in the agricultural world. Especially since the farmer who owned the cow was ordered to pay damages to the victim’s family for not having fenced the pastures.
But a subsequent judgment also highlighted the tourist’s responsibility and the amount was halved.
The government subsequently published “a guide to conduct” for hikers, calling on them to stay away from herds and to keep their dogs on a leash but to unchain them in the event of an attack.
