Dealing with quakes, animals, media and flakes

But prominent Kaikoura farmer Derrick Millton was also in the spotlight of world media and had animal rights activists using his misfortune to push their views when three cows and a calf were photographed on ‘cow island’.

The aerial photo showed the cattle stranded on an ‘island’ of grass after the land on all sides slipped away – part of a 1.5km rupture. The photo, taken by a New Zealand media group, caught the eyes of news media worldwide, their viewers and readers asking would happen to the animals.

With all that, and other emergencies on his farm, Millton had the presence of mind to turn it into a good news story about how NZ farmers care for their animals. His regard for the cows and calf and their welfare shone through in his media responses.

“We were so busy... I couldn’t actually see any media, hadn’t read a paper or seen TV…. I kept thinking, ‘I don’t need to know what’s going on out there’, but these people kept arriving at my door or phoning for another story.”

It was good the media photo alerted him to the cows, he says, but he would have got to them within a couple of hours anyway.

Millton recognised he couldn’t stem the tide of media interest. PETA and the RSPCA offered to come and help, but by then the job was done. ABC and CNN were calling and people he knew in England were inquiring.

He realised it was worth putting time into media response to ensure the stories reflected NZ’s high standard of animal welfare. As chairman of the Wool Research Organisation of NZ, Millton understands the significance.

But the Kaikoura district councillor says he had to deal with onfarm issues first, and people in the area had suffered massive losses.

The cows were “well and truly back around the water trough before he could properly tell the story,” Millton told Rural News. “I was trying to settle PETA and the animal rights people. Rather than just be blasé about it, we had to give a reasonably solid answer as to what our animal health obligations were and how we carried them out.”

He was surprised himself where the cows ended up – in the middle of nowhere. Eighty hectares moved, it wasn’t a small slip. It was 1.5km across and fell about 300m vertically, dropping from about 335m to about 45m altitude.

The slip was “unbelievable,” he says. “It wasn’t like a wet slip, it was a dry slip that moved 100 yards (91m) to the east. All the ground moved; it still has all the grass but it is on the flat rather than on the hill and what is left on the hill is a white, stark-looking face.”

It looks like a glacier he says. He reckons the quake released so much energy they may be free from anything major because it was such a big uplift of soil and beach.

All the animals were a bit skittery afterwards because they had suffered, but the grass was still upright so, provided they could avoid the cracks, they were all right.

“They are right now, but we all were a bit on edge, weren’t we? So I don’t blame the poor old cows.”

The ‘cow island’ animals were controlled and happy to be rescued, Millton says. They were compliant and ready to be helped. “They followed us along.” It took a lot of time for his sons Ben and William, who manage the farm business, and others, to get them down.

They were Hereford cows with calves and the next day were due to come in for mating.

Millton says it was a widespread earthquake and goes a long way.

“Some people have been really affected by it; it’s not over yet perhaps. But they’re all rural people and they are very innovative in things like this.”

He hopes the major stresses are over.

“We just have to do the work to get it back where it was. I think people are quite settled down now.”