Remember MOOtilda, The Rogue Brown Cow From Upper Township, NJ?

It was only a few years ago that the brown cow on the loose in the Marmora section of Upper Township captured the hearts of so many South Jersey residents via social media.

The story of Mootilda

Hers was one that we were all hoping would have a happy ending.

The now locally famous brown cow was initially spotted in the woods back during the summer of 2022. Eventually, she would come to be affectionately called "Mootilda." This lovely gal provided locals a lot of laughs, a bit of anxiety, but most importantly, a cause to get behind.

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Mootilda touched the hearts of so many people within the community that were hoping to bring her to safety. You see, Mootilda was on the run for quite a few months. Multiple efforts were made to rescue her. Nobody deserves more credit for those attempts than one specific local, Anne Merrill. She's the South Jersey woman that made it her mission to capture Mootilda, hoping to provide her with a better life.

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Merrill was the one who made sure the cow was hydrated and fed as best she could. She's no farmer, after all. Still, with Merrill's help and the assistance of some locally-based good Samaritans, arrangements were finally made for Mootilda to live the remainder of her life on a rescue in Salem County once she could finally be apprehended.

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Mootilda's unfortunate demise

Sadly, we now know that wouldn't be the outcome for Mootilda. It was confirmed by multiple sources that the original owner of the cow apprehended her and sent her off to the butcher. Because so many people, myself included, developed a level of affection and caring for Mootilda, that's not the ending most of us were hoping for.

After hearing about Mootilda's depressing end, so many people had questions. Why didn't the original owners make attempts to capture her before? If they did, why didn't they make the public aware when she initially went missing? These are questions we'll likely never get answered.

She's been gone for two years now, but we'll always remember the cow that called the Marmora woods home, at least for a while.

RIP Mootilda!

This one's for all the animal-lovers in NJ: