Turkish owner pardons bull after it escaped sacrifice by swimming 23 kilometers

RİZE - Demirören News Agency

The Turkish owner of a bull has pardoned the animal after it escaped religious sacrifice by jumping into Black Sea and swimming 23 kilometers.

The bull was brought to a livestock market in the northern province of Rize on Aug. 21, when millions of animals were sacrificed throughout Turkey to mark the first day of the Islamic fest Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice.

The animal ran away after breaking its ropes, jumped off a wall and fell into a river. While its owners desperately followed it, the bull swam until the sea and then went ahead for 23 kilometers in three days to reach the neighboring province of Trabzon.

Fishermen noticed the bull off Trabzon’s Sürmene district on Aug. 24 while “floating like a ship.” Security forces called in managed to take the animal out of the sea and reached its owners.

“He is swimming so fast. Now he is in the stable of my partner and he is fine,” the bull’s owner Metin Yalçın said.

“He can be a commando. We have named him ‘Black Hawk.’ So, Black Hawk swam!” Yalçın’s partner Zekeriya Balık added. “After all that happened, no one will probably want to sacrifice this animal.”

Meanwhile, Turkish singer Haluk Levent announced on Twitter that he would buy and adopt the bull to save its life.