High school students sustain ‘miracle cows’

[yuiyoshida]

By Daisuke Tomita / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

NATORI, Miyagi — As evening falls on Miyagi Prefectural Agricultural High School’s temporary facilities in Natori, only its makeshift cowshed is lit, but the voices of female students can be heard. The students are caring for “miracle cows” that survived the tsunami triggered by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and their offspring.

Four years and eight months ago, the high school’s original buildings, located about one kilometer from the coast, were hit by a 10-meter tsunami. Hayato Atsumi, an instructor, 41, risked his life to unclip the collars of 34 cows raised at the school immediately before the tsunami hit. Though many of them were swept away and perished, 14 cows returned, dripping wet.

They were kept at other schools and the prefecture’s experimental stock farm, and gave birth to calves there. When the temporary cowshed, made of a steel frame and plastic sheets, was put up two years ago, there were only two cows and two calves. Now the number has increased to 15 cows and calves.

Eight students who major in stock farming take care of the cows voluntarily, doing jobs such as feeding and milking them and cleaning the shed after school. Even though such work is not easy, they have adopted a motto — “Have sympathy with cows” — that their predecessors came up with.

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002554328