Steer with biggest horns dies

• Tweet

GASSVILLE, Ark., May 24 (UPI) -- A Watusi steer that held the world record for largest horns has died of cancer at age 14 on an Arkansas refuge, a caregiver says.

Lurch, who died Saturday afternoon at Rocky Ridge Refuge near Gassville, went into Guinness World Records in 2003 when his horns were measured at 36 inches in circumference, The Baxter (Ark.) Bulletin reported.

Despite his weakened state, Lurch stood up Saturday morning, walked out of the barn and ambled down a hill to lay down in the sun along a fence with "his buddies," said refuge owner Janice Wolf.

"No one who saw him would have believed he could march down that hill," she told the Bulletin. "You should have seen him. It was really something to see."

He went down later when he tried to make it back up the hill and died a short time later, she said.

"He was a class act," Wolf said.

Lurch will be immortalized in a full-body taxidermy created by taxidermist-artist Tim Dobbs of Midland, Texas, she said. It hadn't been determined where the famous steer's final resting place will be.

"Tim was here when Lurch died," said Wolf. "He said he wanted to meet him before he died, and he did."