Dog walker trampled to death by cows

Updated 3 hours, 11 minutes ago

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 49-year-old woman dies after being trampled by cows while walking her two dogs
• Police believe dogs may have made cows feel their calves were threatened
• Experts say it's very unusual for people to be killed by cows
• Police advise dog walkers to let pets off leash if they feel threatened by cows

Experts say cows can become aggressive if they feel their calves are being threatened.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A woman was trampled to death by cows while walking her dogs in northern England, police said Monday.

The 49-year-old died at the scene, said a press officer for North Yorkshire police, where the incident took place on Sunday just after noon local time (7 a.m. ET).

"She had two dogs with her," said the spokeswoman, who declined to be named in line with police policy. They were not on a leash, she added.

"We believe the cows may have gotten protective of their calves," she said.

The woman was alone when she was killed in Gayle, near Hawes in Wensleydale, she said.

Police and the National Farmers' Union both said it was very unusual for people to be killed by cows in Britain.

"There are perhaps a few incidents every year where people are injured by cattle," said Mike Thomas, a spokesman for the union. "People being killed by cattle is quite a rare occurrence."

But he said cows could become aggressive if they felt their calves were being threatened.

"If the dog is getting close to the animal, it's going to react in some kind of aggressive manner," he said.

People who feel threatened by cows while walking dogs should let their animals off the leash in order to put distance between themselves and their pets -- because cows are more likely to see dogs than people as a threat -- and move to the edge of the field, he said.

The average cow weighs about 1,760 pounds (800kg), he said.

From CNN.com; see the source article here.

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Ancient mass grave found on Olympics site

Reuters - Saturday, June 13

By Stefano Ambrogi

Archaeologists digging at ancient burial pit found in Ridgeway, Dorset.

LONDON - An ancient burial pit containing 45 severed skulls, that could be a mass war grave dating back to Roman times, has been found under a road being built for the 2012 British Olympics.

Archaeologists, who have only just begun excavating the site, say they do not yet know who the bones might belong to.

"We think that these dismembered bodies are likely to be native Iron Age Britons. The question is -- how did they die and who killed them," said dig head, David Score, of Oxford Archaeology.

"Were they fighting amongst themselves? Were they executed by the Romans? Did they die in a battle with the Romans?

"The exciting scenario for us possibly is that there were skirmishes with the invading Romans and that's how they ended up chopped up in a pit," he told Reuters.

When the main Roman invasion force landed in Britain in AD 43, Claudius' legions moved swiftly through western England to subdue fierce Celtic tribes.

The skulls and other bones were unearthed at a place called Ridgeway Hill, on the construction site of a new major relief road to Weymouth, on the Dorset coast in southwest England.

The seaside town -- in the heart of Thomas Hardy country -- is to host sailing events for the London Olympics.

The grave site is close to Maiden Castle -- Europe's largest Iron Age hill fort where local tribes are said to have staged a last stand against the Roman legions after the invasion.

Some historians believe the Romans sacked the site, butchering its population including women and children, before burning it to the ground.

Score said they had counted 45 skulls so far in the 6-meter wide pit, together with a tangle of torsos, arms and legs, more could be found in the coming weeks.

Most of the skulls were those of young men, supporting the theory they could have been killed in battle or executed en masse.

"One of the things that we will be looking for is do they have sword cut marks on the bones, and how were the heads dismembered: prior to or after death in an act of victory," Score said.

Archaeologists say they could also be Roman citizens or indigenous people who had died through disease or disaster.

Few artifacts have so far been found with the bones, though pottery shards dating to the late Iron Age and early Roman period have been found scattered around the pit.

"It is rare to find a burial site like this one," Score said. "There are lots of different types of burial where skeletons may be aligned along a compass axis or in a crouched position, but to find something like this is just incredible."

From Yahoo! News; see the source article here.

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Couple leap to their deaths carrying dead son

Image by Manav Gupta via Flickr

This is a very sad story…

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LONDON — A grieving couple appear to have plunged to their deaths from a cliff on the south coast of England, clutching a rucksack containing the body of their five-year-old boy after he died of meningitis.

Mr Neil Puttick and his wife Kazumi drove to the Beachy Head beauty spot in East Sussex, south of London, a day or two after their son, Samuel, died at home in Wiltshire in the west of England.

They are thought to have leapt together with two rucksacks, one holding the body of their son and the other filled with some of the child's favourite cuddly toys and a model tractor.

Samuel, who was left paralysed by a car accident four years ago, was taken ill on Tuesday last week.

On Friday he was sent home from hospital in Bristol, western England, when it became clear that he was not going to live.

The child was certified dead by a doctor at his home on Friday evening. It seems that, at the weekend, his parents drove 225km to Beachy Head.

Their bodies were spotted at the foot of the cliffs on Sunday evening and, because of the terrain, were only recovered the following day. The Guardian

From TODAY, World – Wednesday, 03-Jun-2009

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