Anchorage Daily News

Darrell Vincek found himself saying something on Monday afternoon that he never thought he would have said in his eight years as principal of Bowman Elementary: "I can't have bulls on my playground."

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He looked out a window and saw two bulls -- of the bovine, farm-variety -- standing not far from the asphalt, jungle gym and swings, munching on green grass.

The animals, named Bob and Ted, are over a year old, complete with horns. They have escaped their pen and wandered the South Anchorage neighborhood several times over the past week. They have been spotted twice at the school, once at the Tanglewood Lakes Golf Club and at least several other times by neighborhood residents.

"I was coming home the other night and they were just standing in the middle of the road," said Wes Groves, who lives around the corner from the busy Huffman Road and Lake Otis Parkway intersection. "They looked like they were wandering around, pretending they were moose or something."

Owner David Biesemeyer said he's been landscaping his fenced, 2-acre property and the bulls have found their way out. The animals, which the neighborhood kids have alternatively named Lightening and Thunder, are docile, he said. "I can go on a walk with them and they follow me like a dog."

Biesemeyer has been raising the cattle for their meat since he got them from a Point MacKenzie farm in the Valley over a year ago.

Nancy Mitchell, who lives nearby, liked seeing the cattle on their walkabout. It reminded her of what the neighborhood used to be like when she moved in 20 years ago, when it was dirt roads and acres and acres of woods. Now her home is mixed into a suburban neighborhood of newly built, cookie-cutter, three-car garage, $700,000 houses.

"As people moved in, animals seemed to move out," she said.

Mitchell had a pet pig, Harley, that she kept in her yard up until a couple of years ago. She says the pig died of grief after her mare died. She didn't bother getting another horse. "There's no place left to ride. All the woods are gone," she said.

Anchorage Animal Care and Control manager Myra Wilson said having the cattle is no different than having horses within city limits. As long as the animals are being cared for properly, and the property they are on is zoned appropriately, it is legal.

Biesemeyer, though, will be cited for letting the animals loose, she said.

On Monday afternoon, when principal Vincek saw the creatures in the school yard, he went outside to investigate.

"They definitely got a little edgy, I felt," he said. "But I don't know cows. I don't speak cow."

He called on the skills of fifth- and sixth-grade teacher Cecil Purrington, who grew up on dairy farms in Massachusetts and Minnesota, to herd away Ted and Bob. "They were obviously tame and really well taken care of," Purrington said. "It made me miss farming."

The future for the bulls is not bright. "Lately, they've had a little more testosterone in them," Biesemeyer said. "It's time."

Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.

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