Police officers who gunned down two cows that escaped on their way to the slaughterhouse have claimed that they thought the animals were 'threatening' and 'dangerous'.
The animals were shot repeatedly and killed as they evaded capture running amok on a rural road in Gatineau, Quebec on Thursday afternoon.
A visitor who captured the moment on video watched in horror as the officers surrounded one of the cows with their cars, sirens blaring, before shooting it dead.
The cops, at one point they have to decide, is it threatening for the population? Is it too dangerous?' a police spokesman told CTV.
So they did realise, and they did decide at one point that they had no choice to shoot the animal and kill the animal.'
The video of the shooting, which has been viewed over 58,000 times on YouTube, has caused anger from animal rights groups.
Esther Klein of the Animal Defence League of Canada said that officers should be better prepared to deal with animals.
One way or another, there has to be responsibility taken for these situations,' she told CTV
'If it's going to end up being the police, then police need the training and the tranquilizer guns and everything that is required to deal with this situation.'
Lucille Cloutier, who took the video while on vacation from Ontario, said that she would have expected the officers to have used tranquilizers rather than shooting the cows dead.
'This would've been the most appropriate thing to do,' she told CTV.
Police said that they are investigating the shooting but have no plans to use tranquilizer guns.
Officers in Ottawa last year shot dead several moose after they roamed into the city.
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