The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Tasmanians

An early morning stillness hangs over the farm.  The air, almost solid with moisture and cold serves as a surrogate for night, concealing the activities of those of ill will.  A broken twig, a cow's eyelid raised.  A sudden, expectant silence.  A hunching of muscles and a setting of horns.  Suddenly, a bellow of noise as the raiders break cover.  Charging towards their prey a gang of ragged wild eyed men wave ropes and rev tractors.  It all seems rather like a low budget production of Mad Max.  That is if the chief protagonist in Mad Max was a very large cow.

Yep the death march of Mr Moo continues.  The latest scheme is to drag our recalcitrant hero across the road by means of heavy ropes and tractors.  Presumably a journey to execution lane will begin from there.  This blogs beef industry reporter has breathlessly passed along details of this latest in an increasingly long line of increasingly futile attempts to prove the human race superior to its bovine competitor.  Eager for a scoop our reporter had hidden in a specially constructed blind designed to blend into the background to witness the attempts to haul Mr Moo roadwards.  Sadly her attempts at reporting were interrupted when someone slung a rope around her neck and hooked her up to a tractor.  Possibly disguising herself as a passing cow wasn't the best idea after all.

I may have used a certain amount of poetic licence in the preceding couple of paragraphs.  A more cultured person would point out that I've actually used a certain amount of unpoetic licence.  In actual fact none of the above happened.  A certain amount of it was intended to.  The tractors, ropes and Mr Moo part.  That was all definitely planned according to our animal torture reporter in Middleton, Tasmania.  A group of young Tasmanian men with too much time on their hands (possibly all of them) under the direction of our reporter's father in law (and perhaps the only halfway sensible one of the lot) were going to assail Mr Moo from all sides and attach a heavy rope to him.  This attempt at animal bondage being successful the rope would then be attached to a tractor.  Details were sketchy from that point but apparently the presence of a large rope attached to both Mr Moo and a tractor would "encourage" Mr Moo across the road.

Doomsayers (myself and this blogs impending disaster reporter in Tasmania) pointed out that attempts to produce this desirable state of affairs could lead to the legs and horns of several hundred kilograms of cow impacting with body parts of enthusiastic young Tasmanians.  Fortunately however disaster was averted.  It turns out that "enthusiastic young Tasmanians" is an oxymoron.  When the time came for the assault on Mr Moo nobody turned up.  One presumes Tasmanians only eat meat if an animal actually falls into a fire in front of them.

For now Mr Moo still reigns supreme if only by default as his opponents have yet to turn up.  Our reporter's father in law after a few exasperated comments about the unreliability of today's generation of Tasmanians is reported to be leaning towards the shoot it where it stands position originally espoused by his wife.  This has the advantage of requiring assistance from nobody and involving very minimal effort.  Sadly this might be a plan Tasmania can actually achieve.  The writing is on the wall Mr Moo.  It's mainly tags from drug addled sixteen year olds but its definitely there.