Cattle conundrum brought to a swift end by highways officers

The stuffed cows were recovered from the A1(M). Picture: HIGHWAYS ENGLAND (Image: Archant)

A driver called Cambridgeshire police to report 20 pigs sauntering on the motorway between Huntingdon and Peterborough just before 7am on July 13.

However the traffic officers were in for a shock when they arrived as found the drivers’ description had been a bit wide of the mark.

Officers Graeme Laws and Ian White could find no trace of the pigs at junction 15, and then when searching a junction further south found out that the reported trotters were in fact a team of teddies as the pigs turned out to be cuddly cows which had been blown around by the wind.

Highways England traffic officers are trained to quickly clear many types of motorway disruption, including animals loose on the network. Thankfully the fluffy Friesians were significantly easier to clear up than the real life pigs they were expecting to find.

“We were looking for these pigs, worried about the disruption they could cause if there were live animals on the motorway, so were quite surprised to find the hoof of the matter was that they were actually teddy cows,” said Ian, who was one of the traffic officers to respond to the call.

“The wind had been causing them to move around in the road, making drivers think they were live animals wandering through the traffic. There were a lot of them, and as we were gathering them we kept spotting another one which we needed to grab.

“Eventually we managed to manoeuvre them off the road so that drivers could continue their journeys uninterrupted.”

The officers milked the situation by bringing the cuddly cattle culprits back to their depot at Whittlesford so others could see what had caused the nuisance.

They are now looking to reunite the cows with their owner, or they will look to donate them to a children’s charity.