Cows trample elderly couple during a hike in the Austrian Alps

Cow herds graze freely in summer in the Austrian Alps. Photo / Getty Images

A hiker in the Austrian Alps has died after a herd of cows trampled him and his wife while they were walking their dog on a forest road, local police said.

Fatal cow attacks are rare in the nation of more than nine million people, whose mountains are a popular tourist attraction where in the summer cow herds graze freely.

The 85-year-old victim and his partner, 82, were hiking towards a mountain hut in Ramsau am Dachstein in Austria’s Styria province on Sunday afternoon when the incident occurred, police said.

“A retired couple from Vienna and their dog were walking just below the so-called Austria hut when a herd of nine cows – including three calves – charged and severely injured them,” local police spokesman Markus Lamb told AFP.

Hikers in the area and people running the nearby refuge hut witnessed the attack, administered first aid and alerted emergency services, with the couple being taken to hospital.

At a hospital in Salzburg, the man died shortly before he could undergo emergency surgery.

Local prosecutors are investigating the exact circumstances of the attack, pending an autopsy.

In 2024, a woman, accompanied by two small dogs, who was hiking in the Salzburg region died when a cow herd charged her.

Following a deadly cow attack a decade earlier, Austria’s Government published a “code of conduct” for hikers.

The guidelines include keeping a distance from cows and walking dogs on a short lead but unleashing them in case of attack.

- Agence France-Presse