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Police save calf from backyard barbecue (http://www.pennlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/1112264605312150.xml?pennnews)
Residents intended to eat it, chief says
Thursday, March 31, 2005
BY THEODORE DECKER
Of The Patriot-News

Harrisburg police collared a calf on Kittatinny Street yesterday, saving it from a date with a city family's dinner table, authorities say.

Harrisburg Bureau of Police Chief Charles G. Kellar said officers were called yesterday morning to the hardscrabble urban neighborhood in south Allison Hill for a report of a calf confined in a small, enclosed yard.

Neighbors complained that the animal had been mooing all night.

Police found the calf tethered in a back yard in the 1200 block of Kittatinny Street, awaiting slaughter by its owners, Kellar said.

Kellar said the family who lives in the home told police that they had bought the animal at an auction the day before.

"I guess they brought it home [Tuesday] in an SUV," he said. "They bought it to eat it."

Harrisburg spokesman Randy King said a city ordinance outlines the requirements someone must meet before keeping farm animals within city limits.

The ordinance prohibits keeping even one farm animal on less than roughly 1.5 acres of land.

One animal also would require a pen of at least 1,600 square feet that is at least 100 feet from any road or property line. Additional animals require more space, said King.

"There are few locations in the city that could satisfy the requirements of the ordinance," King said.

The tiny yard on Kittatinny Street clearly fell short of the requirements, so police took the calf into custody. The owners could be fined.

The animal's ultimate fate was not immediately clear. Kellar suspected it would end up in an environment more suitable for livestock than Kittatinny Street.

"It's a residential area," the chief said. "We certainly don't want people bringing cows home and butchering them in the back yard. That would also probably be a health issue."