Can a bull kill a person?

Answer 1

Yes. In many and gory ways. And it's not a recommended way to go. But most cases where bulls kill people are those that can be prevented. This is because most people

a) become too complacent around bulls

b) trust a bull too much (especially one that has been raised as a bottle calf), and

c) do not know the warning signs that any and every bull will give a person before he attacks.

There were a couple of episodes on the show Fatal Attractions, which can be viewed on Discovery Channel's Animal Planet, on people who were either killed or mauled by their pet bulls. These people had raised these "pets" from the bottle, and had raised them so that they were treated as a part of the family, like they were a four-legged human. Because they were treated as such, they were trusted, and thought that these little bull calves could be trusted up to and past the point where they reach sexual maturity. Naturally, they were proven wrong.

A bull that is raised on the bottle alone without any other cattle around to teach him proper bovine etiquette and behaviours became what animal behaviourist and professor at the Colorado State University Temple Grandin calls "Bull people." These bulls start learning and thinking that they are human, and thus will interact with humans much more than with other bulls or cows. When a bull calf no longer becomes a bull calf and reaches and pasts sexual maturity, he starts seeing humans as the things he has to dominate or challenge for dominance. When he tries to dominate a human, this is what leads to deaths and serious injuries to that human because that person is much weaker and smaller than a bull with an issue about being lower on the totem pole than that person.

Most people believe that bulls will attack without warning, but that's because they haven't taken the time to notice or don't know how to notice the warning signs that that bull has given them. Not acknowledging a person's presence, presenting his side and flexing his neck, or pawing the earth if facing the "threat" are all warning signs that a bull is about to attack. A bull will also threaten someone by shaking or tossing his head, or even giving a cold glare to that "threat." (In nature, glaring or staring directly at an animal, be it a bear or a buffalo, is a direct challenge to that animal.)

Bulls are only mean and has the potential to kill if they become or learn to be aggressive towards people, in which the bull has figured out that a human is really smaller and weaker than him. Or, if he has been bred, by humans, to fight anything that is not another bovine to the death, such as those bulls that matadors face in the Spanish bull fighting ring. Bulls can also be "mean" or "killers" out of fear, especially if they're put in a corral or squeeze chute that they remember something bad that has happened to them, or they are put in a corral with a human or dog that is too far into the bull's flight zone enough that he feels he has to attack in order to rid of this thing that is causing him to panic. Such bulls can be gentled with calmness and kindness. Not aggressive bulls. Cattle producers should and do make it a top priority to cull any bull that shows signs of aggressive behaviour towards anybody.

Bull aggressiveness is primarily the result of mistreatment or genetics, all done by humans. Humans are the ones that are mean and make bulls into killers, not the bulls themselves. A bull is just doing his job by protecting his harem of cows and passing on his genetics to his offspring; in a natural world a bull doesn't choose or wish to kill people. Yes, bulls can and do kill people, but it's only because of the misunderstanding and ignorance that we humans tend to hold on to when raising and breeding livestock like cattle.