Yvonne the Problemkuh

August 20, 2011 1:17 AM

The search is on for Yvonne the Cow, who has been on the loose in the Bavarian woods, mocking her captors, since May. Attempts to capture her have included employing a behavioural scientist, Yvonne's "best friend" Waltraud, a calf named Waldi and an unnamed bull.

(Yvonne did come to visit Waltraud and Waldi - under cover of the night. She was able to flee anew. She was not impressed with the bull.)

After running on to the street infront of a police car, she has been deemed a threat by authorities and may be shot in the interests of traffic security. Spiegel link 1 and 2. Since then the Bild Zeitung has set a 10.000 Euro bounty on her head, while the debate among hunters, police, cow whisperers, animal rights activists and the local populace becomes more and more heated.

Since Yvonne has become an international phenomenon, she of course has a Facebook page, a Wikipedia entry and a bouncy Youtube song.

Newspapers everywhere draw parallels to Bruno the Problem Bear.

posted by Omnomnom (46 comments total)

She's clearly gone AWOOL, the moolingering coward.
posted by foursentences at 1:19 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

What, they don't have cowboys in Germany?
posted by BurnChao at 1:22 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Do-it-yourself "Steers & Queers In Germany" joke.
posted by Ardiril at 1:25 AM on August 20, 2011

Wow. I read the entire article and can still edit it down to 6 words: There Is A Cow In Germany.

oh yeah, except the paragraph about the bear, which was probably the most depressing thing I'll read all week:

For Germans, Yvonne’s wily exploits called to mind the 2006 escapades of Bruno the Wandering Bear, the first brown bear seen in Bavaria in 170 years, according to a mournful report in Der Spiegel after he was killed by hunters after weeks of trying to capture the animal alive.


posted by mannequito at 1:36 AM on August 20, 2011

I bet "Yvonne" turns out to be 2 Berlin performance art hipsters in a cheesy cow costume.
posted by paulsc at 1:47 AM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obligatory America bashing:

I'd rather have media captivated by a cow on the lam than a nonstop drumbeat of celebrity "news" punctuated occasionally by made up lifestyle pieces about how tough the rich have it.

Also, American "cheese" is disgusting.

Carry on folks.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:53 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

The video looks like a Pythonesque Loch Ness documentary. In Search Of: The Forest Beast!
posted by steef at 2:03 AM on August 20, 2011

Somebody's gotta say it: Yvonne the Cow is much more interesting than any of the cast members of "Jersey Shore". Okay MTV... your next hit show will be: "Jersey Cow".
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:11 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

"It was the night...the night of the cow!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:18 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

She is clearly on an epic quest to rendezvous with Khanzir, the Only Pig In Afghanistan.

Also: "Yvonne even has her own German-language Wikipedia page. Just like David Hasselhoff."

They're aware the German Wikipedia has well over a million articles, right? It's like saying "The escaped Bronx Zoo cobra even has its own English-language Wikipedia page. Just like Madonna."
posted by Rhaomi at 2:41 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'd rather have media captivated by a cow on the lam than a nonstop drumbeat of celebrity "news" punctuated occasionally by made up lifestyle pieces about how tough the rich have it.

They also have that in Germany, you know. But Yvonne's apparently this summer's celebrity animal, after Paul, Knut and Schnappi.
posted by Skeptic at 3:46 AM on August 20, 2011

Meh.

There was an escaped cow in Piney Lakes Reserve, which is a small swampy patch of green in the middle of suburbia in my home town.

But the way it unfolded was hilarious.

• "Stick to the roads, stay away from the moors!" It started out as some random beastly noise at night. People were freaking out.
• Of course, the nearby residents were crazy for reproting it to the police. Random beastly noises at night? As if!
• After a many weeks of random beastly noises at night the cops finally start to believe the nearby residents.
• Someone has an ah ha! moment. "Remember that big accident involving an abattoir truck that rolled over? Ages and ages ago? And remember how eight cows escaped but we only caught seven?"
• Long story short – this cow survived nine months on the loose in a park in the middle of farking Perth. Towards the end it was daily reading in the papers. They sent in cattlemen and trackers everything. The full box and dice. Everyone was rooting for the cow.

After capture, she was saved from the abattoir.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 3:56 AM on August 20, 2011 [9 favorites]

Have they tried here?
posted by ShutterBun at 4:31 AM on August 20, 2011

I am sure Gary Larson drew a cartoon about this.
posted by localroger at 5:44 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Cow tools...all over Bavaria.
posted by ShutterBun at 6:06 AM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

What, they don't have cowboys in Germany?

If they don't, they should.

When I was an exchange student in Germany in the 1980s, the thing which fascinated them the most about me is that I come from southern NM... literally Billy The Kid country. (He was briefly held in a jail close to where I grew up.) They are ALL ABOUT THE AMERICAN COWBOY in Germany, or they were back then.

I seem to remember there were at least a couple amusement parks which were Wildes-Westens themed. We never went to any of them, which was too bad. I would have been amused to see exactly how all that was presented through a German lens.
posted by hippybear at 6:11 AM on August 20, 2011

"It was the night . . . the Night of the Cow!"

"What a cow."

"What a nonconformist!"
posted by D.C. at 6:30 AM on August 20, 2011

(Damn, I really should reload and check other posts before posting.)
posted by D.C. at 6:31 AM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

arrrrgh! I just burned one of my nyt times impressions on a cow.

Some of us are on mobiles and the link doesn't display when we put the cursor over it.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:34 AM on August 20, 2011

I just burned one of my nyt times impressions on a cow.

nelson-laugh.wav
posted by hippybear at 6:37 AM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

I met some full-on German cowboys a few years ago in central British Columbia, in the remote and glorious Nemiah Valley. They own a dude ranch (which incidentally had once belonged to a couple of the Von Trapp children) there catering mainly to Germans. There's also a German hippie Wiccan living in the valley but he wanted nothing to do with the redneck cowboys.
posted by Flashman at 6:44 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

What, they don't have cowboys in Germany?

Oh, they do-- they're just all too busy singing.

Hamburgers, no less.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:52 AM on August 20, 2011

Sorry Ironmouth! I didn't realise that that might be a problem. Not sure how to solve it, though - by writing NYT or WP etc when linking to a paywalled site? And I didn't know it was paywalled in the first place.
posted by Omnomnom at 7:17 AM on August 20, 2011

In case you were wondering, yes, that rhesus monkey is still on the loose, and the residents seem to be abetting it.
posted by cashman at 7:35 AM on August 20, 2011

Paging Temple Grandin...
posted by madamjujujive at 7:46 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

After months of attention, a backlash against Yvonne has been brewing. On Friday, posters reportedly appeared around the location where Yvonne is thought to be hiding out calling for the authorities to “kill the cow.”

wtf is up with that? Why not put up a couple "Slow - Possible Cow Xing" signs?

On further review of this amusing translation, it does appear she almost caused a car accident. Still, a backlash? Against a free-roaming cow? Why are these people so angry?
posted by Glinn at 8:05 AM on August 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also, I keep reading the headline of this FPP a-la the Pee Wee Herman Show character... Miss Why-Vonne. I blame him for my being completely unable to take that name seriously any longer.

She was in love with Captain Carl, not Cowboy Curtis. Maybe they need to send off to Hamburg for someone from the docks to lure the cow in.
posted by hippybear at 8:07 AM on August 20, 2011

they're sick of her self congratulatory stunty shtik and suspect that she's just angling for a book deal, that's why.
posted by Omnomnom at 8:09 AM on August 20, 2011

The cow is six years old. She has surely heard of hamburger and stew meat by now....

@ hippybear: German fascination with the 'Wild West' dates back to Karl May, author of numerous Westerns.
I found that Bosnian people are fairly interested in the American West, but, not to the point of theme parks and re-enactments,
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:14 AM on August 20, 2011

Waltraud is the best name ever.
posted by winna at 8:42 AM on August 20, 2011

Just like David Hasselhoff...Just like Madonna

David Holsteinhoff and Moodonna also have their own Wicowpedia pages, yes.
posted by mintcake! at 8:56 AM on August 20, 2011

Go outside with a bucket of sweetfeed and bang it til she comes. Animals like food.
posted by LordSludge at 10:42 AM on August 20, 2011

Will never hear ol' Hank the same way! My Yvonne, indeed.
posted by skbw at 1:58 PM on August 20, 2011

MORE LIKE BOVARIA, AMIRITE
posted by Sys Rq at 2:39 PM on August 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Leave Yvonne alone!!
posted by bleep at 2:50 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

We have reached the tipping point.
posted by hal9k at 3:44 PM on August 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

"...mocks her captors ever anew." I am in love with this phrase, and hope someday to be able to do the same with my own captors.

Graze on, Yvonne.
posted by kinnakeet at 10:11 AM on August 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

What, they don't have cowboys in Germany?

They have men that wear buttless leather chaps. Is that what you were asking about?
posted by hal_c_on at 1:49 PM on August 21, 2011

High-tech hunt continues for missing cow
posted by homunculus at 9:15 AM on August 22, 2011

"High-tech hunt." Huhuhuh.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:25 AM on August 22, 2011

Oh victorious cow! In its bid for world domination this cunning ungulate has succeeded in training a great army of apes to do its bidding.
posted by homunculus at 1:29 PM on August 27, 2011

Happy Ending for Yvonne: Celebrity Runaway Cow Gains Her Freedom
posted by homunculus at 2:10 PM on August 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yvonne the cow has been found
posted by homunculus at 3:16 PM on September 1, 2011

In other bovine news: Cow walks into Austrian clothing store
posted by homunculus at 9:33 AM on September 3, 2011

Jazz for Cows
posted by homunculus at 11:29 AM on September 12, 2011

That's hilarious homunculus - apparently cows have eclectic taste in music.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:51 PM on September 12, 2011