Bull could have felt pressured, cornered before attack on man, says expert

The man gored by the bull is in his 50s. Photo / Thinkstock

An agitated bull may have felt pressured or cornered when it lashed out against a Waikato farmer at the weekend, an animal behaviour expert says.

Emergency services were called to a rural property in Tahuna, Waikato, on Saturday after a man was gored by a bull.

The man, in his early 50s, was airlifted to Waikato Hospital in a critical condition, and is now in a serious condition in the hospital's High Dependency Unit.

Police, ambulance, the Fire Services and rescue helicopter all attended the scene at the small farm.

Tahuna Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Iain McDonald said they were called to the scene on Old Hill Rd about midday.

"He was back at the house, he had got from the paddock back to his house. He had quite severe injuries, as you can imagine, to his stomach and leg.

"We administered first aid and waited for ambulance to turn up, and they carted him off and flew him off to hospital."

Mr McDonald said the man had been gored in two places - his leg and his stomach.

"He was pretty uncomfortable alright... as you can imagine. He was in a hell of a lot of pain.

"He was on a little block of land there, he was just out shifting them as far as I can gather, there was a mob of them and for some unknown reason one of them must of decided to turn on him.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there was infection or something like that, when you get gored by a bull it's not very clean."

A neighbour on Old Hill Rd said she heard helicopters early on Saturday afternoon, and initially thought it may have been a car crash in the area.

The woman said the man had about seven bulls in his paddock, which he often moved between paddocks.

"It's horrible... he's very lucky they're quite powerful because they're older and they would of been very strong."

Animal behaviour consultant Mark Vette said bulls were a "much underestimated animal" that was "highly respected" and had the potential to "cause serious damage".

Mr Vette, a professional animal psychologist and zoologist who treats behaviour problems in animals, was in charge of training a 1300kg bull which featured in Vero's 'Bull in a China Shop' television ad.

Working with bulls was particularly dangerous - especially if the bull was horned, he said.

"One of the things these days is that bulls are generally not allowed to be horned, there are some regulations that restrict that, and the reason they did that is there is a lot of injury with horned bulls.

"They are a well underestimated animal in terms of the damage they can do. It is a real matter of experience working with bulls."

These types of attacks could happen at any time, Mr Vette said, and the animals were likely to react if they felt cornered, flustered or pressured.

"Normally when you are working them into a yard that is the most dangerous time when you are working with a bull. When for one reason or another the bull gets cornered away from other staff and they want to get back to the herd they will just go straight through you to get there.

"You can get run over and bowled and beaten up by a bull and that's about enough to kill people even. They are just so much bigger than we are."