For weeks, a red cow kept slipping away from the people looking for her around a lake in southwestern Poland. She crossed the water, disappeared into shoreline thickets and outlasted attempts to bring her back. By the time she was caught, officials had decided she could live.

She died after that capture, before she could settle into the home arranged for her.

The story began on January 23, 2018, in Buków, a village near Lake Nyskie. Workers were collecting cattle for slaughter when a Limousin cow broke away as they led her from a barn toward their vehicle. Her owner, identified as Łukasz in the local newspaper Nowa Trybuna Opolska, said she knocked down a metal fence and ran across fields and through woodland toward the lake.

The pursuit was dangerous. The farmer said a worker who tried to catch her near the shore suffered a broken arm and bruised ribs. She entered the water and reached an island.

A later attempt by firefighters brought another escape. Paweł Gotkowski, deputy head of the county fire service, described a crew approaching by motorboat. When firefighters landed, the cow entered the water from the island’s other side and swam to a nearby peninsula.

Searchers could locate the cow, but getting close enough to recover her was another matter. She moved between the lake’s islands and overgrown banks, where the vegetation made pursuit difficult. Her owner said he eventually stopped chasing her but continued leaving food, finding tracks that suggested she was eating it. She remained loose for about a month.

The search became an attempt to give her a home

As the story spread, offers arrived from people and organizations willing to buy the cow and keep her alive. Animal-rescue foundations were among them. Local officials also proposed taking her into a reserve being planned for retired horses near Nysa.

Czesław Biłobran, the head of Nysa county, made the change of plan explicit. On February 21, he said the cow would be spared.

“It is so brave and strong-headed that we decided to keep it,” he said.

On February 22, a team caught the cow near Siestrzechowice, by the lake. Veterinarians used medication to calm her, and the team restrained her for removal.

She died as the team tried to move her to a farm. Nysa spokesman Bartosz Bukała confirmed her death.

Stress and a heart attack were suggested as explanations. However, subsequent local reporting said there had been no postmortem examination and no official determination of what killed her.

The county had bought her before the final capture, and a place to keep her had been prepared.

Veterinarian Jacek Opara later told local broadcaster RTO that a colleague had cried after her death.

The images are for illustrative purposes only and do not depict the actual cow or locations described in this story.