Steer's Mooing Could Put Owner in Jail

July 6, 2007 — -- It's not your typical noise complaint.

Karyl Hylle, a 25-year-old woman from Hugo, Minn., could face 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine because her neighbor claims her pet steer moos all night, preventing him and his family from sleeping.

Mark, who asked that his last name not be revealed, has called the police 21 times to complain about mooing.

"It's sounds like a very deep bellowing foghorn moo. It's not just your regular cow moo.It's 'I'm angry, I'm hungry, I want to eat — moo,'" he said on "Good Morning America." "And it's very deep, from the gut and it's loud and it's a very gut-wrenching moo."

But Hylle insists that while her steer, Wally, moos sometimes, it's never more than a couple times a day, and that rarely does he ever moo at night.

"He just doesn't really moo that much. Sure he moos once in a while — he's a steer," she said. "But I just haven't heard him moo at night. And I have roommates here on the farm — they've never heard him mooing at night either."

Move the Moo?

Wally lives in a paddock 100 feet away from Mark's home. Hylle's farm stretches over 33 acres, and Mark doesn't understand why she can't move Wally farther from him.

"My bedroom is right here. The cow is penned up right there, and it's about a 30-yards distance," he said. "It will wake us up during the night with windows closed in our bedroom, so why does the cow have to stay right here with her? They've got 33 acres of land."

Hylle hopes to move Wally to an area farther from her neighbor sometime soon. But fencing in a plot of land large enough for a 900-pound steer is expensive and time consuming, and in the winter she would still need to bring Wally back to his current paddock, which is close to the safety and warmth of the barn.

Plus, she doesn't think she should be forced to move her steer.

"This is a farm. It's zoned for farming. Legally I could have 30 head of cattle here. I have one. And it's the country. Cattle are supposed to moo," she said.

Hylle said that if Mark wanted to continue to live in the country, as he has for 18 years, he ought to get used to the sounds animals make.

"If you buy a house a hundred feet from a farm, you kind of have to figure that animals will make noise," she said. "I don't think this is very neighborly."

On Thursday, Hylle met with Hugo city officials to try and resolve the problem short of a $1,000 fine and jail sentence. She thinks she and Mark will be able to figure something out.

As for Wally, it seems he's tired of the whole debate. It took several hours and a lot of coaxing from "Good Morning America's" camera crew to get a moo out of him.