This is not wildlife, but still animal encounter while hiking - and a bad one.
Here in the Alps we have a very common, age-old way of keeping cattles, by bringing them up into the mountains for the summer.
In past centuries the animals got watched and cared for by a person who lived up there the whole time, the same person who harvested a bit of hey for bad weather periods and processed the milk.
Nowadays, the animals are simply kicked out into the mountain pastures and mostly left for themselves, the owner going up there only every now and then.
The cows are no more for getting their milk, but for to breed calfs, who live on the milk of their mothers. Other animals are young bulls to spend the last summer of their short life up in the mountains.
All this business ensures the very special look&feel (and smell) of the Alps you may know from famous pictures.
The EU pumps a lot of money into this farming system, and farmers are very busy following the specific directions to get this money.
Nowadays there seem to be a lot more domestic animals up in the Alps than ever before.
All our local hiking trails cross those alpine pastures, when hiking you mostly walk along age-old trails that connect those pastures.
All the same time you walk past and through flocks of cows, horses and sheep.
Now it happens every now and then that cows become agressive and attack a hiker, there are even some casualties every year.
According to the news, many times a dog seems to be the culprit, but other times there is no dog involved, and the people attacked did not do stupid things while walking past the cows.
Myself I had several encounters like this over the past years (no injuries so far, but uncomfortable and scary).
Can you belive that cows are more deadly than bears?
Is there any such problem in your part of the world?