Wayward bull finds its way home

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Call it the tale of the wandering bull. A Texas longhorn set free by a rancher as a Southern California wildfire advanced some 18 months ago has had enough of roaming. As the San Bernardino Sun reports, it’s home.

The bull’s owner, Gabe Mendoza, let his cattle loose as flames roared toward his Banning ranch in October 2006. The Esperanza wildfire raged for days in Southern California, killing five U.S. Forest Service firefighters.

As the Sun tells the tale of the wandering bull, Riverside County animal control officers were called in last week when a longhorn wandered down from the mountain town of Idyllwild and was standing in traffic in San Jacinto. As it turned out, the bull was Mendoza’s.

Animal control officer Lesley Huennekens says the bull got ‘a little wild and spookish’ when she tried to rope him. But later, when animal control officers drove up alongside the longhorn with a trailer, the bull jumped right in. As Huennekens told the Sun, ‘He was done being a drifter.’

-- Steve Padilla