Barney the bull still on the loose, but rescuers hope he misses the herd

Barney the runaway bull, still on the loose in the Mastic-Shirley area since July 20, has everything he needs — food, water and sheltering trees.

So the desire to rejoin a herd is one of the few motivations that might lead to his eventual capture, his key rescuer said on Wednesday.

The fear, said Mike Stura — who hopes to bring Barney home to his Wantage, New Jersey-based animal sanctuary — is that the media hoopla that flared in the first few days will sabotage the rescue.

Curious bystanders or the inexperienced could scare or harm the young Angus bull — or even stampede him into a person or a vehicle on nearby Sunrise Highway, agreed Stura and Roy Gross, chief of department, Suffolk County SPCA.

Gross stressed that a crash between a car and a deer can prove lethal — and Barney weighs at least 12 times more than a deer.

Capturing runaways like Barney can take months, said Stura, who founded Skylands Sanctuary & Animal Rescue, and who has spent 900 hours on this endeavor. Past examples he cited include a dairy cow and her young calf who spent an entire winter eluding rescuers.

Both he and Gross urged patience; and chose not to reveal details about Barney's location or any sightings due to the heightened risk to the public.

To critics, and social media has more than a few, who say "Send in the cowboys," Stura pointed out the impracticalities of trying to lasso a 1,500-pound bull in a densely wooded area, with trees just three to four feet apart.

To those who urge using tranquilizers, he explained those drugs do not kick in for as long as 25 minutes. So Barney — even if darted in a field — could wander back into the trees, or even tumble into a nearby river. "If this were just a flat field, I would have had him out the first day."

To those who claim Barney has left the area, Stura says he has abundant evidence he remains on the private property whose publicity-shy but generous landowners have made him welcome, along with his truck and equipment.

He spends most nights in rescue mode, alongside a corral and a feeding trough that could be locked if Barney would just stick his head inside.

That trough not only has cameras — as some of the trails now do — but it never is locked when Stura is not nearby. Still, Barney is Iikely fending for himself. And unlike a dog or a cat, he does not look to humans for food or water.

And just about everything in his location is edible. "Everything is lush and green," Stura said, who has slept just one night in his bed at home in the last 36 days.

"I try to put out the best things he would go for," he said, but he likened the process to trying to entice a dog with treats when there are 50 bowls of dog food around to distract him.

Wary of trying to handle Barney alone, Stura saluted two Long Island stalwarts of the animal rescue world, Eddie Stepinski of K-9 Search and Rescue and Joe Rocco of The Broken Antler, who join him almost every night, waiting for Barney to finally succumb to the lure of food.

"He reminds me of a little kid who runs away from home," Stura said. After the initial rush, the child then realizes, "This is not as much fun as I thought it would be."

He "seemed to be enjoying himself in the beginning, and now he’s like ‘I’m bored with this, I want to go home and be with my own people.’"