Calf rescued with help from Collier County Sheriff’s Office

A Collier County Sheriff’s Office Agricultural Bureau member responded to a call from a local rancher in need of assistance late Tuesday morning, according to a Facebook post by the agency.

The rancher, who was calling from a pasture near Oil Well Road and State Road 29, said she was with a calf that turkey vultures had tried to attack.

The rancher was protecting the calf from the vultures but she needed help lifting it into the bed of her truck. The mother cow was not with the calf. 

Sgt. David Estes drove to the pasture and helped the rancher gently load the calf into the truck bed.

From there it was taken to the rancher’s barn for care. The baby will be bottle fed, given some mediation for its slightly infected umbilical cord and raised there until she is strong enough to join the herd again. The calf appears to be about a week old.

Due to the rancher’s attention to the care of the herd, the calf was rescued before the vultures were able to injure it. The rancher decided to name the calf Hope.