The carcasses of two calves lie tangled together on a rocky hillside near Bowen Valley, about 5 miles south of Baker City, on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2023. The owner, Ralph Morgan, suspects lightning killed the two animals, as well as a cow found nearby.

BAKER CITY — A Baker County rancher believes lightning killed two calves and one cow last weekend on his pasture near Bowen Valley, about 5 miles south of Baker City.

Ralph Morgan said his son, Riley, found the three dead animals on Sunday morning,

Aug. 6.

The carcasses of the two calves, both born in June, were tangled together, the cow a short distance away on a rocky hillside of brush and grass.

The site is on the south edge of Bowen Valley, on a ridge between the valley and Old Auburn Road.

Ralph Morgan said there was abundant lightning in the area on Saturday evening, Aug. 5.

On Sunday morning a neighbor who lives in Bowen Valley called to say that Morgan’s cows had been restless and bawling for more than half an hour.

Morgan said he asked Riley, who lives in Bowen Valley (Ralph lives several miles away beside Highway 7 along the Powder River), to check on the 20 head grazing in the pasture on the ridge.

Riley Morgan found the three carcasses.

Ralph Morgan said there were no obvious signs of injury. That led him to believe that lightning was the culprit.

He said the cow was already bloated by Sunday morning, and none of the animals could be salvaged. There was no evidence of scavenging, though, so the animals hadn’t died long before.

Morgan, who has been a rancher for decades, said he’s never before suspected lightning as a cause of death for cattle.

He said, though, that it probably happens occasionally, given that thousands of cattle graze across Baker County during the peak of the summer lightning season.

According to media reports, a lightning bolt in northern Alabama on July 1 struck a tree under which a group of cattle were sheltered, killing 31. Several similar instances, with a dozen or more cattle killed by a single bolt, have been reported in other states over the past few decades.

There are only scattered junipers on the pasture where Morgan’s cattle were grazing, and the dead animals weren’t close to any trees.