MILFORD, N.H. (WHDH) - Everyone seems to know this Scottish Highland bull in Milford, New Hampshire.
“You can’t drive by without seeing him,” resident Margot Drake said. “He’s gorgeous.”
The shaggy-haired bull first caught the eye of resident David Wirbal during a drive home last summer.
Over the past year, the bond between the 1,200-pound animal and Wirbal has grown. He even named the bull Dudley.
“From there, the bond increased and we became friends,” Wirbal said.
But Wirbal knew that as 3-year-old Dudley fattened up, the bull would be put up for auction and would end up on someone’s dinner plate. So on Christmas Eve, he stopped and talked to the owner of the farm.
“I asked, ‘Hey John, if I can meet that price, can I buy him?’ And he said yes,” Wirbal recalled.
Wirbal put up $3,000 and has started a GoFundMe page to raise the other $3,000.
“To me, one way or another, he’s gonna go, so we’re making people happy,” farm owner John Wisniewski said. “We’re fine with that. It’s a good thing.”
Wirbal has arranged for Dudley to go to the Unity Farm Sanctuary in Sherborn, Massachusetts, where he’ll live out his days.
“There’s no agenda here,” Wirbal said. “One day you run across a Scottish Highland, it changes the way you think about food. That’s the goal.”
It’s a bond between man and animal that’s not close to ending — it’s just beginning.
“What better feeling to know that instead of being on someone’s plate,” Wirbal said, “he’s gonna be on a beautiful farm.”
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