\u201cIt was supposed to run around over there with the word on it, yes, when I was pissed off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was never supposed to end this way. It ended this way and, yeah, it looks f***ing terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leanne Rouse, who was caring for the bull with her husband Roger, said she saw Murphy driving along the road with the animal strapped to a pallet on his tractor.<\/p>\n
She believed the bull was already dead because its head was hanging down.<\/p>\n
The dead animal with an expletive spray-painted on its side. Photo \/ Leanne Rouse<\/p>\n
Leanne Rouse said she approached Murphy after he stopped and started undoing the straps, asking why the animal was dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to him, \u2018It\u2019s dead\u2019. He goes, \u2018No, it\u2019s not.\u2019 I go, \u2018It\u2019s dead.\u2019 He goes, \u2018No, it\u2019s not.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Leanne Rouse claimed Murphy then told her: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t dead when I put it on the crate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Murphy told the Herald the bull was alive when he left his property and was restrained during the journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it left here it was restrained and it went over the hill as far away from my animals as I could possibly get it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went over, released the straps and it was supposed to go in the paddock.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cause of the bull\u2019s death is still being established by authorities.<\/p>\n
Murphy told the Herald he thought the animal may have died from bloat after it \u201cgorged itself on good pasture on my land\u201d.<\/p>\n
A neighbour said MPI had removed the bull\u2019s head for examination.<\/p>\n
Murphy said the incident followed long-standing problems with animals entering his land. He said the bull had been among three groups of his cattle during the preceding three days and he and his wife had spent about 13 hours returning it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI returned it twice on Sunday and once on Monday, and we\u2019d warned them that they were on the riverbank the week prior.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bull when it was returned to the Rouse’s property. Photo \/ Leanne Rouse<\/p>\n
The Rouses disputed Murphy\u2019s account of how frequently their stock had entered his property.<\/p>\n
Roger Rouse said animals had crossed to the other side of the river only two or three times. This prompted the Rouses to hire fencing contractors to install a two-wire electric boundary fence that allows flood water to pass through.<\/p>\n
The area where the animal crossed was susceptible to flooding, making permanent boundary fences impractical on both properties, he said. <\/p>\n
The nearly year-old bull did not belong to them but was being grazed on their property for another farmer. Roger Rouse estimated it weighed about 270kg, while Murphy estimated its weight at between 150kg and 200kg.<\/p>\n
Murphy said he was willing to pay for the animal, although he later learnt it did not belong to the Rouses.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I said on the night, I was willing to pay for it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t supposed to die.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rouses disputed that claim, saying he never offered to pay.<\/p>\n
The two families have not spoken since the incident.<\/p>\n
Police told the Herald an investigation was underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can confirm police are investigating a matter involving a dispute between neighbours, and a bull being killed, which occurred at a Tapuhi Rd address on September 8,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
MPI manager animal welfare and national animal identification and tracing compliance North, Brendon Mikkelsen, said the ministry was also investigating.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur role is to identify possible animal welfare breaches under the Animal Welfare Act 1999 and to hold those responsible to account.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikkelsen said MPI had visited the property and was working to determine the cause of the animal\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
The Herald spoke to a neighbour who was friendly with both families and was present shortly after Murphy arrived at the Rouses\u2019 property on his tractor.<\/p>\n
They said it was hard to believe what happened as there hadn\u2019t seemed to be any animosity before the incident. <\/p>\n
The neighbour said it was a sad scenario for the small community as Murphy\u2019s wife and the Rouses\u2019 daughter worked together.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll it needed was one phone call,\u201d said Leanne Rouse. \u201cWe would have gone straight over and collected our bull. One phone call, one message \u2013 that\u2019s all it needed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt was supposed to run around over there with the word on it, yes, when I was pissed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95020,74,75798,3648,22947,10709,634,6179,7126,245944,676,29107,111,43,139,1067,69,20421,44462,675,312,212999,61,2443,4741],"class_list":["post-600885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accidentally","tag-after","tag-afterwards","tag-animal","tag-bull","tag-concerns","tag-death","tag-died","tag-dies","tag-expletive","tag-investigate","tag-mpi","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-painted","tag-pallet","tag-police","tag-says","tag-strapped","tag-to","tag-welfare","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}