Friday, October 25, 2002
A humane society agent said the farm owner kicked her when she told him his animals would be taken.
MERCER, Pa. -- The Mercer County Humane Society planned to seize about 30 head of cattle and 15 pigs it said are starving on a farm in East Lackawannock Township.
Humane Agent Cyndi Sankey said she visited the farm of Robert J. Bagnall on Flat Road around 7 p.m. Thursday after getting a telephone call about starving cattle at that location.
She was accompanied by Pennsylvania State Police and other humane society representatives, and said she found one cow near death lying in a field and about 30 others in a state of starvation.
The cows were in a pasture, but there was no grass. It had all be eaten and only dirt remained, she said.
There was someone placing some fresh-cut grass in the pasture and the cows were eating it up as fast as it was put down, she said.
Sankey said she called in a veterinarian to euthanize the downed cow and began making arrangements to seize the others as well as the pigs.
All to be moved
All of the animals were to be moved to a location near West Middlesex this morning, she said.
Police said Bagnall, 81, became angry when Sankey informed him that the animals would be taken and he assaulted her. Sankey said she was speaking to him on his back porch when he suddenly kicked her in the leg.
State police witnessed the assault and filed a charge of harassment against Bagnall. He wasn't taken into custody at the scene but will be sent a summons to respond to the charge.
Sankey said she wasn't injured.