NATCHEZ — A cow, apparently on a three-month hunt for greener pastures, sent drivers and police scrambling Sunday afternoon before she was captured Monday in an unlikely — unless you are a cow — location.

The bovine police chase first took officers through neighborhoods off Seargent S. Prentiss Drive near Parkway Baptist Church.

Then, just when the animal reached one of the greenest patches of grass in the county it was captured — on Monmouth’s lush grounds.

The cow’s owner, Edna Strauder, said the cow got loose three months ago from a pasture on Providence Road.

“We didn’t know where she was,” Strauder said.

The Natchez Police Department contacted Strauder Sunday afternoon to see if the loose cow could possible belong to her.

Strauder sent her sons out to attempt to catch the cow, which was spotted in the neighborhoods surrounding Parkway Baptist Church as well as on Fatherland Road.

Trinity Episcopal Day School student Alli Smith spotted the cow on Seargent S. Prentiss Drive near Parkway Sunday.

Smith and others helped look for the animal with police officers and wranglers on horseback.

Many witnesses mistook the cow for a bull because the cow was of a breed in which the females also have horns.

Monmouth Assistant Manager Carol Jones said she and others inside the historic inn heard a commotion and went outside to investigate.

“There were four or five guys trying to wrangle this (cow) in the front yard,” she said. “It didn’t take long for them to get a rope around it. The difficult part was trying to get it into the … trailer.

“It was quite interesting. We see deer. We see foxes, but we have never seen a (cow) on the front lawn before.

Natchez Police Department Sgt. Jerry Ford said the department received multiple calls about the loose cow, a type of police call fairly routine outside the city limits but not as common in Natchez neighborhoods.

Ford said police did not receive any reports of damage done by the cow. The cow was safely returned to its owner.