Title: "Helga Tacreiter: The Heart Behind The Cow Sanctuary in Bridgeton, NJ"

BRIDGETON, New Jersey (WPVI) — Paid Sponsor Partnership: Philadelphia Corporation for Aging

For more than three decades, Helga Tacreiter has been running The Cow Sanctuary in Bridgeton, New Jersey.

"It’s a little bit, tiny bit less than 80 acres," says Tacreiter. "I have Jersey cows, Holstein cows, a yak."

She estimates she’s rescued about 158 cows since she founded the nonprofit in 1990.

"And most cows don’t get to live like this," she says. "It makes me happy."

Tacreiter says she got to "know cows" working at a dairy farm for the first time in 1976.

"The cows were just wonderful and when they stopped making milk, they got slaughtered," she says.

She decided to create the sanctuary after tragedy struck at her next workplace, a horse farm, where her job was to feed the horses and cows on site.

"It was this huge storm and I went out and I found all these dead cows in the field," she says. "The first cows I had were the six babies that survived the lightning storm."

She wrote a children’s book about the experience called "Harvey and the Lightning Herd," with proceeds benefiting the sanctuary, which she runs herself.

"I’ve had 26 at a time. That’s the largest number I’ve had," she says.

Now, she cares for 14 cows, including Buttercup.

"That’s how you get in good with a cow, scratch them where they can’t reach," she says.

There’s also another cow named Monken.

"He was born here. His mother came pregnant," she says.

All the donated cows have a story of how they got here.

"This is Annabelle. She came with her daughter, Sophie," she says. "They were raised by a 4H kid who grew up and wanted to make sure his cows are okay, even though he couldn’t look after them anymore."

Over the years, Tacreiter has added more animals to the sanctuary, including pigs, goats, sheep, and donkeys. She also has a mini horse, an emu, and four cats.

She earned PETA’s Gregory J. Reiter Animal Rescue Award in 2022.

"They have very, very individual personalities," she says. "Cows are very smart. I spend half my life trying to outwit cows."

Tacreiter says she hopes to find someone to take over what she’s started, since "cows don’t require a lot." She says she just gives them "space and food."

"It’s wonderful to see them," she says. "It feels like this is how everything should be."

For more information:

The Cow Sanctuary / TheCowSanctuary.org
"Harvey and the Lightning Herd" book / Amazon.com

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