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Holy Cow! Cows Cause Traffic Woes on I-81

SOUTH ABINGTON TOWNSHIP — The morning rush hour in Susquehanna and Lackawanna Counties was slowed by a couple of cows. Drivers on Interstate 81 in Lackawa...

SOUTH ABINGTON TOWNSHIP -- The morning rush hour in Susquehanna and Lackawanna Counties was slowed by a couple of cows.

Drivers on Interstate 81 in Lackawanna and Susquehanna Counties who maybe hadn't had their morning cup of coffee may have thought they were seeing things: two cows were spotted in the highway median in two spots miles apart.

It turned into a very bizarre investigation for state police.

If cows could talk wouldn't you like to know what that heifer has to say? Morning commuters spotted the cow in the median of Interstate 81 near Clarks Summit around 7:30 a.m.

State police had to work backwards from there. The first of many questions: where did she come from?

"I would guess that she came from the north, she looks like a northern cow, a northern heifer to me," said Tucker Edwards, All County Livestock.

Edwards is the cow expert called in to help. He owns All County Livestock in Nicholson Township in Wyoming County.

Edwards rushed over with a hauler.

"I have a dart gun, I was going to dart it, but we didn't have to dart it, she's not wild at all."

The cow went without incident. She knew her ride had arrived and that it would bring her refuge from the rain.

This heifer wasn't alone in her plight. PennDOT crews found another one about 14 miles north in Susquehanna County.

They led it across two lanes of highway and tied it up at a rest stop until another farmer came to pick it up.

Back at the farm in Nicholson Township, this cow was, by all accounts, relatively unscathed by the whole ordeal. A few cuts and scrapes suggested she and the other fell off the back of a truck.

They are bred milk cows. The theory that they were escaping slaughter has been debunked.

"Very minor, before it was always a wreck and you have to get the cattle out of the wreck. But this, I don't know how this happened. I would say a tailgate came open on a truck and they got off," Tucker said.

State police still don't know how those cows got off the truck but they have located their owner. He made it all the way to his final destination in Union County before noticing the two were gone. Arrangements are being made to get the cows back to Middleburg.

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