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No bull: Roslindale bovine was actually a steer, but now has a name and is looking for a home

Moodini

Steer waiting for rescuers to get a mooove on. Photo by MSPCA.

The MSPCA reports Moodini the Roslindale Bull, um, Steer, is now comfortably ensconced at its Nevins Farm in Methuen, where he is undergoing state mandated medical testing and exams before he can be re-homed to an area more suitable for one of our larger mammals than woods out back of a strip mall in New England's largest city.

Moodini, a Hereford steer - meaning he had gotten the snip at some point in his young life - spent two months hoofing it around out back of the Walgreens pharmacy in the American Legion Highway strip mall near the Hyde Park line after somehow making his way there from the area of Pagel Playground up on the Jamaica Plain line along Hyde Park Avenue.

"Moodini escaped from a resident who was unaware that farm animals, with the exception of permitted chickens, are not allowed within the City of Boston," an MSPCA spokesperson says.

We don’t often get calls about large animals loose in a city, and when we do, it’s usually for wild animals like a moose or a bear, maybe a horse that escaped from a fenced in area." Kaycie McCarthy, equine and farm animal outreach and rescue manager at Nevins Farm said. "So, this was new territory for us!

The MSPCA got involved after somebody spotted Moodini last week and Boston Animal Care and Control, which also does not tend to get many reports of roaming cattle, asked for help - Animal Control managed to get him to lumber into an enclosure by luring him with some food, but then city workers found themselves on the horns of a dilemma: They had no way to move him or place to keep him, since the city animal shelter - also in Roslindale - is set up for somewhat smaller animals..

McCarthy said the thick brush the steer had turned into a new home made removing him particularly difficult:

We had to build a chute using livestock panels that was roughly 300 feet long to guide Moodini into our trailer through thick brush. We’re lucky that someone from the Parks Department was there with a chainsaw because we had to clear some small trees to get our trailer into position.

The whole process took about two-and-a-half hours and a dozen people. But almost all of that time was spent on the complex setup. Once we opened the steer’s pen, he took off up the chute and was in the trailer within minutes.

Setting up the chute (photo by MSPCA):

Setting up the chute

Although Moodini is still in a form of quarantine, the MSPCA is already looking for a place to which they can steer him, "in a home with adopters who have cattle experience and other cattle to keep him company, as well as equipment needed to best care for him.

Since Boston zoning bars cattle ranching in most of the city, that probably means somewhere out on the range; people who have the room and expertise to have him moove in, can submit a query at mspca.org/nevinsadopt.

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Comments

Asteerabull

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Voting closed 36

he steered all of us wrong?

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He showed us you can live off the land. Even in Boston. He showed us many animals, even if overbreed for domestication, still prefer freedom and can survive in it. For a time at least, depending on how much humans have twisted their genes.

I think he also demonstrated that we have a severe need for affordable housing and for green space and that you don’t need a car to live in Boston.

And you don’t need balls to do it.

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Voting closed 56

Steering clear.

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… hoof it.

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Man

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::golf clap::

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We're getting carried away with these dedicated traffic lanes.

"We had to build a chute using livestock panels that was roughly 300 feet long..."

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Voting closed 31

…. were here first.
Another thing this stall-wart citizen has brought to light.
Still, Moodini is being evicted. Shame.

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Voting closed 33

I'm sure that lane would've been blocked by a parked UberEats driver within two minutes.

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According to the Mayor: Not my problem.

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An antivaxxer loon.

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I'll send in my form. I'd love to meat this fine creature.

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You’re showing symptoms of foot in mouth disease.

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You don't have to, they'll tell you.

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Maybe you meant that also.

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It’s crazy a full size steer can survive on the lam in New England’s largest city without being detected for several weeks. Maybe we really can afford some more density…

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Diversity yes. As in no more redlining of bovines.

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.. at the whole "two months hoofing it around out back" where "out back" is in Boston.

Ninja steer.

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Out back of Walgreens! This is the Crane Ledge area, right? An urban wild folks have been fighting to protect from condos!

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If you look at the aerial view posted here, you'll see a big collection of trees to the left south of the Walgreens. That's Crane Ledge. Then there's a smaller sort of tree path heading up, behind the Walgreens and up to the cemetery in the upper right (along with lots of non-tree green - mmm, them's good grazing). Some of that might be part of Crane Ledge, too, it's hard to tell because the view doesn't really show the elevation there, and part of the hilltop was once clear cut for a large driving range that never opened because the guy who built it (who owned the cemetery) never applied for city permits first (and now much of that is owned by Eversource, not the church that wants to sell it for development). But a good part of that is not Crane Ledge - and Boston Animal Control said specifically that Moodini was found near Crane Ledge, not on it.

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Outback Steakhouse?

Not the best place for avoiding a meat up.

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Allandale's Willard may need a new buddy soon — Curtis is nearing the end of his life. It'd be fun if we could visit this magical Roslindale bovine...!

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… another agricultural arts festival like the one they had many many years ago. Also my first time to appear on the front page of the Globe. Me and a cow.
The cow statues were great but Moodini would be even more of a star.

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Best of luck to him finding a home with kind humans and space to roam.

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