Most frequent animal that I see around me is stray cattle . Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated animals commonly raised for their milk or darft purpose in Nepal. They are the members of the sub family Bovinae . Normally their life spans ranges from 18-22 years and their gestation period is about 283 days.  Body weight of an adult bull is about 1100kg and female cow is about 720 kg. It is believed that cattle are descended from a wild ancestor called aurochs. The aurochs were a huge animals which originated on the sub continent of india and then spread into Nepal ,china and the middle east and eventually northern Africa and Europe . cattle were only  domesticated after sheep, goats ,pigs and dogs.

Cattle are ruminant animal which have one stomach with four separate compartments .  since they are herbivorous  animals , their digestive system allows them to digest only plant materials and after that they repeatedly regurgitate it and chew it again as cud. It is said when a cattle is perfectly healthy ,it chews its cud and  repeatedly it regurgitates .Cattle mostly depend on grasses , other vegetation and feed for their survival.

In case of Nepal , people living in urban region with limited area has got stray cattle as one of the problem in their livelihood . For not only community , local level government has also  got main challenge to manage stray cattle. Stray cattle has became one of the reason behind the road accidents ,loss of lives and loss of crop in field in our country .There are two key factors that contribute to the problem of stray cattle in urban region of Nepal. Firstly , the cow is a scared animal and slaughter of cattle is prohibited by law. Indeed , cows are the national animal of Nepal and strict rules and punishment exist there for those who do not respect their sanctity. So they have less economic value although they have great religious values. Secondly despite it being illegal to kill or injure  a cow , cattle are widely used in the dairy industry to produce milk . To produce milk , a heifer need to be continually impregnated and to give birth . Female calves are valued as they increase the supply of milk and are necessary to eventually replace their mothers when their supply decreases. Male calves on the other hand  have very little use and considered as waste product of dairy industry  and keeping them become expensive so farmers generally let them out of their  shelter the road  to survive. Because of this reason the numbers of stray cattle are high in our country.

Until a long term solution is found to deal with the  street cattle , the problem can’t get reduced easily .Simple methods are often the easiest to  implement and most effective , we can use collars made of reflective tape to make cows more visible on the street at night , making them less likely to fall victim to road accidents . This simple solution greatly lowers the risks that cows face when crossing roads and is perfectly safe for animals , being loose fitting and easily broken away if it gets caught on something . while the numbers of street  cows does not reduce but at least it become safer .

Reference:

1) https://beef2live.com/story-cattle-101-hist-breeds-fun-facts-terms-85-104671fbclid=IwAR1OW6AR6cbFRlkQZVYcQxogIVhFf9oGceK9eYJcvLv-3kh7xIDucbi6Zy0 

2)https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcijnepal.org.np%2Fstray-cattle-trouble-local-government%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3cBDrnXjekDZ9Y0RpySa1ZPGlGm2hkxZuO5aXAO7pexfh4fvxlAVj37ng&h=AT06QPaVyRPQ8RTHwNE658duqNmOInh1iYL6qNG6dpBBsKBCZ6HryPvEU2Kp9k_2q_qR1nclLJ9ZX7DFF6p8d-ade9BQup30-29MKg9v_I2T-gum4yzrsUo6pn85gwNiwC_4Dw