Beef Cow Left Bobbing in Hurricane Florence Floodwaters Pulled to Safety and Given a Dry Home

Red the beef cow (a cow raised to be slaughtered for meat) was literally treading water a few days ago. Now, the “feisty” farm animal has a forever home with Mike Stura at Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in Wantage, New Jersey, where she will live out her days without the fear of being eaten.

Stura, the founder of Skylands, has a soft spot for cows. The longtime animal rescuer started the sanctuary and rescue for farm animals after falling for a sickly veal calf that no one else wanted.

A truck driver with extensive rescue equipment, experience with large animals and mechanical expertise, Stura has the ideal skills, resources and personality to follow his passion.

When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas last year, Stura got the idea to drive to the Houston area with his equipment to see if he could help. So when Hurricane Florence battered the Carolinas in September, Stura didn’t hesitate to help again.

“I didn’t go with a plan,” Stura tells PEOPLE of his goals in North Carolina. But the rescuer quickly found work.

A local woman informed Stura of about 20 beef cows caught in the floodwaters of a nearby farm. The concerned citizen, named Carolyn, hopped in a boat with Stura and his volunteers and showed him where to go.

Following her instructions, the boat traveled through one mile of floodwaters before reaching a submerged cattle farm. Of the cows that Carolyn mentioned, about 10 were standing huddled on the porch of a farm building, and the others were caught in the flood frantically treading water and bobbing up and down for air.

The farmer and owner of these animals gave Stura and his companions permission to rescue and take any of the animals that were drowning, but not those on the porch.

Unaccustomed to and wary of human handling, the beef cows paddled away from Stura’s rescue boat, but with a little patience and luck, one of the animals came close enough to Stura that he was able to get one end of a rope holstered around the cow and the other end secured to the boat.

Stura and the other volunteers then proceeded to carefully tow the cow one mile back to dry land, where the exhausted animal, now named Red, didn’t have the energy to stand.

With some extra help from a few local meat farm workers, Stura was able to load Red onto his trailer and take her home.

Red wasn’t Stura’s only passenger: the rescuer also discovered three skinny, mange-covered puppies cowering on the side of a North Carolina road. This trio made the return trip to New Jersey, too.

“It was clear they had been through the whole storm and that likely no one had been taking care of these dogs,” Stura explains.

Back north, all three dogs are now under the care of a rescue run by Stura’s friend. The rescue has vetted the puppies and placed them in the same foster home while staff works on finding the pups the perfect forever home.

As for Red, she has been fully vetted as well. And while Stura usually keeps newcomers to Skylands separated from the other animals at first, he’s made an exception for the Hurricane Florence survivor.

Since a life of minimal human interaction has made Red agitated around people, Stura introduced Red to her new pack early.

Shortly after arriving at Skylands, Red met the 18 “middle kids,” a.k.a. Stura’s medium-sized rescue cows, who include a cow rescued from the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. While Red is the smallest among the her new herd, she’s already fitting in.

“You could see her demeanor change within one minute,” her rescuer says.

Video: Dramatic Flooding After Hurricane Florence – and the Water Is Still Rising