No Bull: Hannibal The Steer Is Enjoying Life After Long Island

WANTAGE, NJ — The name Hannibal just came to farm animal rescuer Mike Stura when the 1,500 lb Angus steer got inside his trailer last month.

There’s no rhyme or reason or secret meaning behind the name — no ode to Hannibal the conqueror or the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.

It just stuck on the once-wayward bovine formerly known as Barney the bull, the all-time champion of hide-and-seek who evaded his captors for two months in a waterfront preserve on Long Island until his capture on Sept. 23.

“I didn't really have anything against any names that people were calling him,” Stura said, who runs Skylands Animal Rescue and Sanctuary in Wantage, New Jersey, noting that he never names his animals without first trying to get to know who they are first.

Stura had only been close to him three or four times previously, but at that moment, the animal was just standing there in his trailer, and it was weird the way the name came to him.

And there’s nothing sinister behind the name, said Stura, noting some followers are upset the animal’s name was changed.

“I think some people are, like, upset like it's sinister, like it's Hannibal Lecter, like it's gonna kill you,” he said. “And my sister was asking me, ‘Is it Hannibal Lecter? The conqueror Hannibal with elephants who went across the Alps?’”

“And I'm like, ‘You know, I don't know,’ I said, but I don't feel like he's liable to eat your liver with a nice Chianti and fava beans,” he said.

Hannibal is more likely to kick someone in the liver than eat it.

“He's a kicker,” he said. “Holy mackerel. I never saw a cow kick like that.”

Stura said he’s heard from disappointed followers who don’t like the bovine’s new name. One even suggested that he should have been left on Long Island. There’s also been some criticism that Stura has left Hannibal’s ear tag in, but for now, it would be too stressful for him to remove the tag.

“When he feels calm, and one day down the road when he just comes over and lets me pet him, I'll probably just snip it off but it's not worth the stress it would put on him for me to try and remove it,” he said. “He doesn't even know it’s there.”

“It’s well healed. It's been there a long time,” he added.

Stura said it was a good thing that he had plywood inside the trailer, otherwise, it would have been “dented like crazy,” Stura said.

Stura also confirmed that Hannibal is gelded and is a steer, not a bull as once believed.

He is in great shape and is healthy — despite his jaunt living off the land for two months — and he passed a veterinarian’s inspection with flying colors.

Most of all, he is making friends at the sanctuary.

He was so interested in making friends when he first got to the ranch that he jumped over a fence where he was enclosed to go off with a few cows.

“He heaved 1,500 pounds, up and over about five feet fence — not touching,” he said. “That's pretty impressive.”

Hannibal is pure muscle, a real monster, Stura said in awe.

In the meantime, Hannibal is getting to know his new surroundings and Stura, though he is not at the point where he can pet him, but not too long for the phone call, he came up to within about 12 feet of him.

It’s hard to say if he knows Stura is his Dad now, but Stura feels he knows that he is safe because he tells all the bovines the same thing every time he catches one.

“Do you know who I am?” Stura said. “And I tell them: ‘You're safe now. You're safe with me.’”

He said he would be lying if it didn't feel like they know who he is because the prey animals tune in well with what people are giving off.

“I always say that I'm going to write a book based on the idea that there is a story that goes through all these slaughterhouses and horrible places with these calves that if they get loose and make themselves known, some long-haired truck driver will come and rescue them,” he said.

“I hope it gives them a little incentive to break out,” he added.

While steer are supposed to be more docile than bulls, Stura does not think it was abnormal behavior for Hannibal to have run away as he did and then stay hidden for so long.

For him, there is always a common thread in that his slaughterhouse escapees are always feisty.

Many times he has been told the animals are stupid and don’t know what is coming.

“Yeah, they do know,” he said. “You know if you've ever been into a slaughterhouse or place like that, you know.”

It doesn’t matter that humans are at the top of the food chain and no one will mess with us, Stura said.

“If you walk in there,” he said. “You don't have to see anything to know what goes on there. You feel it. You hear it. You smell it. To me, it's, like, palpable. The fear is like electricity. It makes the hair on your arm stand up.”

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